will to live . . . returning!

And thank god, because for a few days there, I was my very own cadre of dwarves: Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Achy, Phlegmy, and Irritable. Because what's more fun that getting sick? Getting sick WHILE starting your period! Fun! It was the really passive-aggressive type of sick, too, where the thermometer never registered above 99.4. If I feel this crappy, dangit, I should have an actual fever. But, hallelujah, the illness seems to be receding, I think I'm going to live, and I feel well enough to be happy about it.

In other news, the weather turned abruptly cold and crappy the day after Thanksgiving ("the forecast for today: cold and crappy, becoming extremely crappy in the afternoon. Tomorrow: continuing crappiness with a chance of wet and crappy in the evening.") And this is the state my socks are in.

Must knit faster.

post-Thanksgiving adventure: with socks!

On Friday, my mom, dad, grandfather and I went to Dahlonega, to see the sights, which included the beautiful Amicolola Falls. RPM sock #2 came along (because of course, riding in car time = knitting time). Last time you saw the RPM sock, it looked like this.


Just a wee little baby. Now it's grown much bigger, and ready for its first big trip on its own. Here it is at the base of Amicolola falls.

And by "base", I mean the point at which our party realized that we were all desperately out of shape and our butt muscles were too sore to continue climbing. It was embarrassing. Moving on.


Here is the sock courageously looking out over the summit of the falls. (You could drive there. Shut up.) The sock enjoyed the view.
In celebration of its first big adventure, the sock got a heel that very night. It's very proud of itself.


Look! Sock #1 has a buddy!



Big shout-out to the Yarn Harlot for getting this whole "socks in the wild" thing started.

Finally!

At long last, we have a lay-out!


This is what I did all Thanksgiving day. I lay all the squares on the floor and frowned and squinted and got up and moved them around and sat back down and frowned and squinted and moved them back and changed my mind, all day. I had to do this in the same room as everyone watching football, so whenever they got up, they had to move around the knitting that had taken over the floor. They were thrilled about this.

Alex approves.

So please! Comments, suggestions, derogatory remarks? Speak now or forever . . . you know the drill.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Working as I do with people from other countries makes me think a lot. (OK, most things make me think a lot. My little hamster-brain is very busy, running on its little wheel. But anyway.)
Now, you can say what you will about American culture. I'll be the first to agree that there are many things that are not the best about it, things I am not necessarily proud of. But how cool is it that we have an entire national holiday devoted to thankfulness and gratitude and being happy with what we have? I think it speaks very well for our culture and I'm proud of that.
I have so much to be thankful for. And because I like lists so much, these things are, in no particular order:

• My family. My family rocks. It's so cool to me that as I've become an adult (more or less), my parents have become my friends, and I'm profoundly grateful for that. I'm also thankful for the close friendship my sister and I share, now that we no longer have to share a bathroom. (I tell ya, dual sinks would have eliminated so much adolescent fighting.) I'm also thankful for my extended family, who are an awesome bunch of people and I wish I got to see them more often. And I'm grateful I get to spend Thanksgiving with my Grandfather, who is a fantastic guy who raised my mother to take no crap, who in turn raised her daughters to be independent and strong-minded.
  
• The Best Roommate Ever, my best friend. What on earth did I do before I had her?
  
• The Rottenest Fuzzballs Ever. They are precious, they are adorable, they are always getting into trouble, but they're so cute about it. And sometimes, if they are in a very good mood, they'll let me kiss their little noses. They don't like it, but they'll let me.
  
• A job that I enjoy (well, more often than not) that makes me feel like I'm making the world a little better. Also, some great coworkers, including, but not limited to Sara (the Sweetest Coworker Ever), Kirk, Nikki, The Guys (you know who you are), Ammy, and Oscar.
• My knitting buds!!! Some of the absolute coolest people I've ever met, a group that really understands me, that I can be myself around. As a dorky, social awkward kid for most of my life, that means a lot to me. You guys rock.
  

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

fun with coworkers

I had the following exchange with Oscar this morning:

Me: Oscar, stop being so grouchy!

Oscar: I'm not being grouchy, goddammit!

Right. Sorry. My mistake.

must maintain control of the sock yarn . . .

I recently realized that between Cat Bordhi, Cookie A., and the woman who dyes Toasty sock yarn, I may never knit anything but socks again. In fact, Toasty is so achingly beautiful, it's everything I can do not to spend all my rent money on sock yarn. To delay the inevitable yarn store falling-down, I'm taking the Yarn Harlot's advice and spending time with the sock yarn already in my queue.

Look how pretty we are!

Knit with us!

I must remember: I am a knitter of excellent taste. I have beautiful sock yarn with brilliant plans to knit it into gorgeous socks. I cannot do this if I buy a pallet-load of new sock yarn.

Wish me luck.

itcameitcameitcame!!!

My Ravelry t-shirt finally came the other day. (GottaKnit has been flaunting hers all over town for a week, the hussy.) I gleefully ripped open the yummy plastic packaging, lay the shirt on the bed, and turned around to shove the packaging waaay down in the trash so a certain orange-and-white furry monster wouldn't find it and eat it and cost his mommy a thousand dollars in emergency surgery. I swear to you, my back was turned for a second, and when I turned back, this is what I saw.

What?

Monster.

the great apple juice deluge of 2007

Today, just as I was sitting down to blog, I thought to myself, "I am thirsty. I will get a cool and refreshing glass of apple juice to drink while I blog." I got the juice, and with no pause or delay, immediately knocked it over, spilling the entire thing INTO my keyboard. You have never heard such heartfelt swearing. This was passionate, from the diaphragm. I immediately called my dad, who does Something With Computers, and screamed, "Dad!!! Apple juice!!! Keyboard!!! GAAAAGH!" He, very calmly, replied, "Hmm. OK. Well . . . " I screamed, "WHAT??? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! SPEAK UP!!!" to which he replied, "That's because I haven't said anything yet." Oh. Right. Sorry, Daddy. Apparently, when one spills six ounces of sticky liquid into a keyboard, you're just supposed to rinse it out and let it dry thoroughly, and it'll be fine. That's right. Just stick it under running water and rinse really good (unplugged, of course), and let it dry for a good long time. That's what he said, and that's what I did. And it seems to have worked. Who'da thunk?
While I was waiting for my keyboard to dry, I thought I'd pass the time by checking out the knit blogs. I booted up my computer, and got an error message that went something like this: "Cannot detect keyboard or no keyboard attached. Press F1 to do A, press Del to do B." Ummm. Hmmm. How can I . . . if I have no . . . ? Must be one of them Catch-22 thingies.

Tonight, I head to Knitch to knit chickens! I've never knit a chicken before, and tonight is the last night I'll be able to say that.

kipping!

Tonight was an evening of kipping and margaritas and causing everyone to wonder who the crazy loud swearing ladies were, and why the heck they were all knitting. (Kipping = Knitting In Public, for those not up on the cool hip knitta slang.)

The RPM socks in the wild.

can I get another HEEL YEAH!

Warning: I think the whole "heel yeah!" joke is very very funny. It is entirely likely I will keep using it every. single. time. I turn a heel. This could be a lot of times. If you find it annoying - well, um, actually I can't help you. How about you just go check out people who are funnier than I? Anyway, for those of you who are still here, check out my sock heel!


Monkey sock redux on larger needles was wildly successful and cured the Horrible Pooling of Yuckiness. I would have taken a progress shot before I got to the heel but, um, well, I have no excuse. I suck. It's a problem. I also started the second RPM sock, which I will show you tomorrow. Tonight, we drown Megan's sorrows with margaritas and tequila!

FO real this time!

Get it? Ha! I crack me up. (And as I reread that line, I realize that I am, right now, before your very eyes, turning into my dad.)

Ta da! The Windy City scarf, from Stitch and Bitch (by Debbie Stoller), made with Kerry's fabulous handspun, finally finished and perfect in every way.



And it keeps my neck snuggly warm. A word of advice, though. If you should want to make a cute little keyhole scarf out of one skein of unique handspun yarn which you cannot get more of because more does not exist anywhere in the world, knit only until you have a square and then immediately start the keyhole. Do not delay putting in the keyhole until you've knit and knit and knit, or you will get this.


Several people told me they didn't think it looked bad, but that is only because this photo does not show my face, which is rapidly turning blue due to the STUPID SCARF CUTTING OFF ALL OXYGEN TO MY HEAD. Stupid scarf.
And then I said to myself, "Self," I said, "I am a reasonably smart knitter. Or if not, then I am a really type A persistent-type knitter. I have fixed screw-ups before. I once dropped a stitch in a lace pattern and managed, using only my wits, determination, a crochet hook and a really bright light, to pick the stitch back up after only two solid evenings of staring at it. I can fix this."
So. I started by unraveling the end I had just bound off, thinking I would pick up stitches from the other end and knit down using that yarn. But no. That won't work, because the scarf is in 1x1 rib, and picking up and knitting in the other direction only works with stockinette and garter stitch.
OK, new plan. I would unravel from the cast-on end and use that yarn to lengthen the cast-off end. Except. Trying to unravel 1x1 rib from the cast-on end requires one to pick out every. freaking. stitch. Individually. This is only slightly less painful than plucking out all of your nose hair with tweezers, and slightly less fun.
OK, new plan. I can do this. I'm tenacious. I will cut the yarn at the cast-on end, where I would like the scarf to start, unravel enough yarn to cast off those live stitches, and then use the yarn gained to add to the cast-off end. I cut the yarn, painstakingly unraveled each. individual. stitch, and cast off-
Only to run out of yarn half-way through the cast-off.
At which point I yelled, "@#$%*& it!" ripped the whole thing out, and started over. ( @#$%*& being a word that my mommy doesn't want to think that I know.)
Fortunately it is a quick knit, so it only took a few days to redo, but please, learn from my mistakes. Only you can prevent scarf strangulation.

the healing power of love

Ok, that was a cheeseball title, but there is a non-cheesy point to this post. The Best Roommate Ever is feeling very crappy. She has some sort of monster snot-producing head-cold-of-death-and-coughing thing going on, and she feels miserable. Last night Alex and I made our best efforts to heal her


Alex used the Power of Snuggling and Purring, and I used the Power of Wool. If you'll notice her feet, she is wearing blue Fuzzy Feet, which were going to be a Christmas present, but I figured she needed them more now. She may feel like crap, but at least her feet will be snuggly warm. Send healthy thoughts her way; I know she'd appreciate it!

warm fuzzies

In light of the chilly weather (shut up! Fifty degrees is so chilly!), I'm getting out all of my warm fuzzy things. The Best Roommate Ever and I are trying to hold off turning on our heat as long as possible, because we are very very cheap and also broke. I love pulling out the warm fuzzy things that I haven't seen for six or eight months. It's like getting new clothes. Or maybe I just have a short memory.


A pair of armwarmers I designed myself. They're made in a 1x1 rib from SWTC Karaoke in two self-striping colorways, with two strands held together so that the colorways shift around each other. If that makes any sense. Much like the Child's Rainbow Scarf from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts; in fact, that's where I got the idea. (I think the colors are 278 Mermaid Mix and 280 Wild Cherry.)



Another pair of armwarmers, Fetching, this time, from Knitty. I have poor circulation, so my hands and feet are always cold; hence, many armwarmers.
Then we have one of my favorites: Fuzzy Feet! Sing it with me! "Fuzzy feet! I got those fuzzy feet!" Much like happy feet, although not quite so active. This was the very first sock pattern I ever made and I would totally recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to make socks. Very easy to follow, the gauge is huge so they go so fast, and if you screw up, who cares? As long as they're vaguely sock-like, once they're felted, no one will ever know.

Pre-felting.

Post-felting.

Fuzzy feet make feet warm. Happy autumn!

Finished object!

I finished this tonight at Knitch.



It's the Windy City scarf from Stitch and Bitch by Debbie Stoller.

Here it is on.


Well, then. Crap.