Warning: Silly Pictures Ahead!

Hey everybody! I'll get the knitting news out of the way first.

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I finished the first Thelonious-inpired knee sock yesterday! I cranked this baby out in just over a week, inspired by a passion for knee socks I didn't even know I had. Theoretically, the second one should go even quicker, because I won't have to spend as much time rewriting charts, writing new ones, and figuring out various construction issues like calf shaping. I'm giving myself a couple of days before I start it though.

If you're not into silly pictures of cats and things, you can stop reading now. Well, I mean, you can stop reading whenever you want, but it;s just a suggestion.

Onto the silly pictures! I'll start with......me and my friend Jennie:

(click for bigger....IF YOU DARE!)

Yeah, so, I took the weekend off from packing for going home and planning my research projects and similar things to go visit my friend Jennie....and Photobooth struck again! Playing with the effects options that come wit the teensy camera in my macbook have once again proven irresistible to my loved ones. For the record, those giant hydrocephalic-y pictures were taken with the dent effect. No effects (aside from our inherent dorkiness, but that doesn't come with a computer, you know) were used for the picture on the bottom.

Anyway, my dear friend Jennie is a doll. She's in the MAT program at Earlham, learning to be a Latin teacher and spread the joy of dead languages to eager children everywhere. She fed us (Jon went too, which makes sense, since he's essentially my chauffeur. Our car is a manual and I can't drive stick.) and took us on walks around campus and beautiful Richmond, Indiana. In return, I taught her some excel tricks to make her action research project easier. Isn't the term action research great? I feel like Action Researchers should have capes issued to them or something.

Now....crazy cat picture!

That's Mittens. She's a big, big fan of knocking over my various stacks of paper and stealing yarn to lick in a weirdly intense, somewhat maniacal way. Also, if you look closely at her upturned paw, you can see her fluffy toe tufts, which I think are really funny. I mean, what evolutionary purpose could they possible serve? Disabling predators with cuteness?

Now....deliciousness!

Midnight flatbread quesadilla! Yeah! I love me some ground beef, sour cream and cheddar cheese at 1 am.

And finally.....something totally bizarre!


That's our friendly neighborhood swordfish sculpture. Yep. It's attached to a speed limit sign outside the hippie bakery down the street from my apartment. It just.....kind of appeared there a week or so ago, with no explanation. I've become quite attached to it in that way you get to random environmental fixtures.

That's it for now. Hopefully, the silliness will abate and a more cogent and cohesive post will be written soon.

FO: Flair

I give you my finished Flair:

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I was sooo excited yesterday morning when I checked the temperature and it was 60 degrees. I mean, aside from the fact that 60 degrees is about my minimum temperature for comfort, it meant that I could finally wear (and blog about) this sweater. It's been done, blocked, and ready to go for the better part of a month now, but I wanted to wait until there was proper sunlight and warmth to present it. Which didn't really happen until yesterday.

I was in a good mood anyway because I was officially done with classes for the semester. No more classes to attend! No more papers to write! No more heinous group projects with crazy over-acheivers who don't play well with others! The day was made even better when I got an email from a professor I'm working with saying she swung it so that I could get SPSS on my laptop since I was going out of town and still had to do analysis for her! Things were looking up, so I got dressed in the outfit I'd always imagined wearing with this sweater, made Jon take a few pictures of me, and then headed to lunch with some friends.

The only downside to the day was that the SPSS install didn't go so well. Apparently, SPSS doesn't work on intel-based mac, like mine, so much incomprehensible computer-speak ensued between the three technicians. When they reached a conclusion, one of them turned to me and said that they could install SPSS if I allowed them to make it a dual-boot machine that loads both windows and OS X. At which point I balked a bit (because I got burned bad by my previous computer, a PC), and said I'd think about it and return Monday. I consulted my professor, and she said that there's a decent chance I can get a laptop on loan from the business school that already has SPSS on it. It's not the same as having SPSS all to yourself whenever you want, but it seems safer to me than turning my computer into some half-windows/half-mac Jekyll and Hyde freak.

But back to the sweater! Here it is without me in it:

(again, click for bigger....you know you want to!)

Yarn - about 8 1/2 skeins of Knitpicks Swish (100% superwash wool, 110 yards) in bordeaux. Now, this is certainly not the most luxurious yarn I've ever used, but it's definitely nice enough...especially for $3.29 a skein! When I was first thinking about this sweater, I decided to either make it out of good quality, but not particularly flashy yarn with awesome buttons, or really awesome yarn and plain buttons. I went with basic yarn and fancy buttons, which I think brought the total cost down to about $50.
Needles - 29" size 7 Inox greys for the body and a set of 4 size 7 bamboo dpns for the sleeves
Pattern - This is the first sweater I've made from a pattern, and I used Knit and Tonic's Flair. I did make a swatch for this one, and my gauge was a bit tighter than the recommended gauge in the pattern, so I knit the 1X (44") size instead of the L (40"). I knit the pattern as written except for these modifications:

• I added 6 stitch-wide (p1, k4, p1) cable panels that I crossed every six rows to both of the front sides and along the raglan seams.
  
• I added two extra buttonholes to the body of the sweater and didn't make one on the neckband (as I ran out of buttons).
• I added one set of body increases to give it more swing.
• I made the body about 2" longer that the pattern directed.
• I used snap tape instead of buttons for the inside closure. Man, snap tape is awesome!
  

Back to Square One

The thing about Thelonious is, it's supposed to look like this....


See the lace panels down the sides? I love them! I saw the sock and thought to myself "Well, that's the perfect pattern for my navy blue sock yarn! The interplay of positive and negative space is ideal to mitigate the heaviness of the deep blue!"

Well, ok, it actually went something like this, "Oh, pretty! It'll be pretty in dark blue, too! Yay for socks!"

Anyway, my Thelonious looks like this:


Notice something missing? Yep, those lovely lace panels. Now, it's not that I didn't knit them, I did, but they just....aren't....showing up. Sigh. I kept thinking that they'd pop out for sure further up the sock, where it would be pulled taught by my curvaceous calves. No such luck. I think the issue is that the yarn is partially mohair and is being knit at a fairly dense gauge. Which means that it's just too sticky to really show off yarnovers. Damn. I thought about re-knitting it on larger needles, but I'm already making the smallest size. So no go that way either. Double damn!

Uncertain of how to proceed, I tried a hunch:


Wee cables. There they are, clear as day. The good news is, I've found a motif that pops sufficiently against the yarn and is the same stitch width as the lace panels (hooray to minimal chart rewriting!). The bad news is that the lovely sock-in-progress I showed you yesterday is headed for the frog pond. I wish I could overlook the lacelessness of my sock, but I can't. Especially with compelling evidence that the yarn works so well as a cable.

Oh well. Such is life. Meanwhile, Mittens and Jon are undisturbed by my sock troubles.

Part 4 - Finally!

Hey guys! I'm sorry I've fallen into this terrible habit of only posting every week and a half or so. I've actually had the last entry of the 100 things about me written since Wednesday, but then I caught a cold and I've been running a fever for the last couple of days while writing my papers. But, I am nearing the home stretch of Finals Madness, so things should improve from here. Also, this is, like, the longest post ever. Feel free to skip whatever.

Things about me (76-100)
76. I used to be a morning person…but that has dramatically changed since high school.

77. I kept pet rats when I was younger. I still think they make great pets.

78. I score surprisingly not-great on standardized tests. It’s not like I bomb them, but I scored about 100-200 points lower on the SATs and GREs than people guess my scores would be. I did rock the psych subject GRE, though.

79. Despite my revolutionary leanings, I was a member of Business Professionals of America in high school (one of my teachers signed me up) and went to state competitions for international business 3 years in a row. I also aced the Economics AP test. Weird, huh?

80. I have very strong hands, and give really good back massages. I do not like receiving massages myself, though, as I have a very low pain threshold.

81. Strong hands also means that I have a really firm handshake. This once got me turned down for a job as a waitress at a pizza place. The manager later told a friend of mine that I”d scare the customers because I was so manly, and that he could maybe find me a job stacking boxes in the back room.

82. I have never broken a bone, had a serious medical emergency or gotten significant dental work done. I have had several concussions, though.

83. I was born skinny and with a ton of hair. I have a weird Mohawk in most of my baby pictures. My sister, on the other hand, was the prototypical fat, pink, bald Gerber baby.


84. My pet peeve is when people are really indecisive, but still super-picky. Like when everyone’s sitting around and somebody decides we should do something. So, you start suggesting things, and they’re like, “no, no.” And you eventually just ask them what they want to do and they’re like ,”you know, whatever….” Drives me nuts.

85. My other pet peeve are those people that are completely unable to just chill. Like, I have a friend who thinks that we have to do something fun in order to hang out. I’m all for going out and having good times, but that’s too much pressure! Can’t we just plop down on the couch every now and then and watch a DVD?!

86. Guys with really long, thick eyelashes get me every time.

87. I have always wanted to ride in a submarine.

88. I flirt like a boy in the 4th grade. Seriously, my method involves showing the guy how smart I am and then punching him in the arm. I’m, like, the least smooth person ever.

89. I get totally weirded out when I see my professors around town. There’s one in my department that lives near me and rides the same bus to campus as me, and I find it very jarring to see him just sitting there minding his own business, listening to his iPod like everybody else.

90. I find weddings kind of annoying. I always feel like they’re way longer than they need to be. I really don't have a romantic bone in my body.

91. I am a very fast but utterly terrible typist. I never learned the proper technique and can’t touch-type to save my life.

92. I once saw a production of Madame Butterfly in Estonia, with a Russian singer playing a Japanese woman. It was totally surreal.

93. If I have kids, I’d really like to name them crazy things like Balthazar or Phlox. I’m not sure if this impulse is a love of quirkiness or a latent sadistic streak.

94. Peculiar things bother me in film and TV. Like, why was Hermione’s dress the wrong color at the ball in the fourth movie? And why do all the women on Lost wear their hair down? It’s a tropical island for chrissakes! My neck gets too hot, and I live in the Midwest!

95. My favorite word is nexus. It sounds cool, and is the kind of cool word you can use in everyday conversation.

96. Sometimes I pretend I speak German. The most I can say is ‘du hast ein fleishe-tascha’ which I’m told roughly translates to “you have a flesh sack.”

97. I have an irrational hatred of William Shatner.

98. As I mentioned before, I’m a fiend for coca-cola. But I am sure that it tastes a bajillion times better out of the can than a 2-liter bottle. I have very defined opinions on this.

99. One time, Jon, Dani and I were driving from Ohio to Texas and I kinda….lost it after my driving shift. I was driving in the wee hours of the morning and right about dawn and Bjork came on. Somehow the combination of these things made me all loopy and we pulled over to switch drivers. At this point, I jumped out of the car and rolled down the grassy hill at the rest stop, much to the chagrin of my roadtrip-mates.

100. I’m the most annoying sick person ever. And poor Jon has to deal with my urgent, and sometimes conflicting demands. One time, I whined for him to get me some water, and then change the channel…WAIT! THE WATER’S OT COLD ENOUGH!! Where are you GOING? I HATE this show……etc. (Note: I have made efforts to be better this time around, but I've failed. In the last 48 hours, I've made Jon order me a milkshake, a burger, and go out for muffins...twice.)

And thus concludes all of the interesting information about me! I must confess, I thought that this would be easier than it was. I consider myself a quirky, interesting person, but those last 10 or so tidbits did not come easily. In fact, many thanks and much props to Dani, who helped me get through the last five by answering my many pestering IMs.

Knitterly Happenings and Acquisitions
First, an FO!

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The Wheelie socks are finished! They actually knit up really fast, considering the wee little needles I worked them on. I think I'm finding my sock mojo, too, because these fit great and are super-comfortable.
Yarn - 2 skeins of ArtYarns Ultramerino 8 in color 115 (various shades of red). I've had an idea for drop-stitch socks like these floating around in my head for awhile, and I bought this yarn way back with them in mind. I thought it was going to knit up in as a semi-solid with lots of depth, but the striping actually looks really cute.
Needles - 47" size 0 addi turbo circular. I told you....wee little needles. I'm having a kind of love/hate realtionship with them. I knit really loosely, so the gauge I got with them was just about perfect, but they are really intimidating. I took a wee-needle hiatus after finishing he first and made the yoga socks in the interim, and the size 5's felt weirdly big.
Pattern - Here it is in far more detail than anyone wants. But, since this is my blog, and I like to keep track of how I make things, you just get to deal. Ha! Sucks to be you!

Wheelie socks

Cuff:
CO 64, work in 2x2 rib for 5 rows
next round: [k2, p2, k1, yo, k1, p2] to end {increased to 72 sts}

Leg:
drop-stitch lace pattern from Knitty's Wheelie:
round 1-5: [k2, p2, k3, p2] to end
round 6: [k1, yo, k1, p2, k1, drop 1, k1, p2] to end
round 7-11: [k3, p2, k2, p2] to end
round 12: [k1, drop 1, k1, p2, k1, yo, k1, p2] to end

work 6 repeats of lace pattern
- on last row of repeat 6, work as follows: [k1, drop 1, k1, p2, k2, p2] for first half, work in pattern for second half. This is the set-up row for the heel flap {decreased to 66sts}

Heel:
work 32 sts on first half back in forth as follows for 30 rows, ending on WS:
RS/row 1: [s1, k1] to end
WS/row 2: s1, p across

turn heel with 6 center sts and 13 sts on each side:
row 1: k 19 sts, ssk, k1 and turn
row 2: s1, p7, p2tog, p1, turn
continue until all sts are used up, ending on WS

Gusset and Leg:
- k across turned heel and pick up and ktbl 15 slipped sts and 2nd rung at joining point
of heel and leg, [k2, p2, k3, p2] across instep sts, pick up and knit 2nd rung at joining
point and 15 slipped sts, knit across heel to instep and mark new beginning of round

Continue working gusset as follows until 30 sts remain for sole:
round 1: k across instep in pattern, ssk, k to 2 before marker, k2tog {2 sts decreased}
round 2: k across instep in pattern, k to marker

When there are 30 sts on sole, work instep in pattern and k plain across sole
-for gusset and foot, work a total of 5 repeats of lace pattern (11 repeats for the entire sock)
-for last row of last repeat, work as follows: [k1, drop 1, k1, p2, k2 p2] across instep, k across
sole {4 sts decreased}
-next 5 rounds: work instep in 2x2 ribbing across instep, k across sole

Toe:
- set-up round: ssk, k to 2 before end of needle, k2tog, k across sole
work toe shaping as follows until 24 sts remain (12 on each needle), ending on round 1:
- round 1: [ssk, k to 2 before end of needle, k2tog] repeat for sole {4 sts decreased}
- round 2: k plain across instep and sole

Finishing:
-graft toes together using kitchener stitch
-weave in ends

Aside from these socks, I'm afraid I've developed knitter ADD. Right now, I've got four more projects on the needles with no FO in sight:

1. I'm trying to adapt the Thelonious sock into a toe-up knee sock. I'm really enjoying the process of learning how to knit a sock the other way, and the charts are surprisingly easy to read in the opposite direction. I'm still not sure how to continue the lace panels up past the written charts. Ideas?

2. I'm working on a lace mohair sweater based on this swatch. I'm still not through with the yoke yet, but it's moving along pleasantly. I'll show you pictures when it's more than a fluffy blue blob.

3. I've started the beginnings of Exchequered in crazy-bright LSD colors. It'll be an awesome scarf, and I'm actually enjoying double-knitting.



4. Because all of these projects involve some sort of cognition while knitting, I was kind of stuck today. I made Jon take me to go see The Reaping because I haven't left the house and I was starting to feel all cabin-feverish in addition to regular feverish. So, I grabbed this sock yarn and made up a pattern during the movie. It's inspired by Jaywalkers, and is basically a heavily modified version of the Ampersand pattern (available here). I have dubbed them the Amperwalkers.



Oh! And I joined Sockapalooza 4! Check out the button on the sidebar.

Best moment of the day
I felt absolutely terrible this morning when I got up, but that did not stop the cats from demanding attention. Mittens is ridiculously entitled, but the Jon Seid Kitten just walked over and nuzzled up. It was very sweet and endearing, so we weighed him, and he's up to......(drumroll, please).......15 pounds! He's essentially doubled his weight since we brought him to Michigan. Impressive no?

In honor of this astounding feet, I give you a collection of photos which capture Sir Fatness best:

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PS - Flair has been finished for, like, two weeks now. I'm waiting for the serendipitous coincidence of daylight, warmish weather, and good health for her debut. Stay tuned!

Part 3

Oh man! I'm sorry I haven't posted in a week. Shame on me. I'm on the brink of finals and all fun things kind of disappeared into the periphery last week. The upside to being really good at time management is never having to pull all-nighters at the last minute. The downside is that right before finals, I'm trying to do classwork, research, and prepping for the exams and papers all at once...which make it more of a crunch time that finals itself, thus defeating the purpose of planning ahead.

Be patient with me for the next two weeks, as I am officially in Finals Madness, and please retroactively forgive me for going all MIA on you last week. Now on with the post.

Things about me (51-75)
51. I am very attached to my pillow. I carry it everywhere and find it hard to sleep on other pillows. I even took it with me when I studied abroad.

52. I find it endlessly amusing that people either think my sister and I look totally different (we have very different skin tones and coloration) and not related or virtually identical (but our bone structure is pretty similar). It’s quite polarizing.

What do you think?

53. My favorite movie of all time is Wages of Fear. It’s fantastic, with an ending that was once described by a Ed Chigliak on Northern Exposure as the definition of closure.

54. My friends and I sometimes play the if-you-were-a-fictional-character-who-would-you-be game. Jon is clearly the Dude from The Big Lebowski, and general consensus is that I am either Lily Tomlin’s character, Vivian, from I Heart Huckabees or Frylock from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Which is totally awesome.

55. I talk during movies. At the theater, at home, it doesn’t matter.

56. I am the biggest car singer ever. I belt and do those stupid I’m-sitting-but-I’m-actually-dancing movements that make you look like a total spaz.

57. If I had a spare couple hundred dollars, I would totally by myself SPSS, my preferred statistical analysis package, in order to do data analysis from home. ‘Cause there’s nothing better than running MANOVAs in your pj’s.

58. I had the following phrase engraved on the back of my iPod nano: “And tschuss balls to you, sir.”

59. I almost never wear jewelry or make-up.

60. I look way younger than I actually am. I regularly get carded going to R-rated movies, and I get stopped when I’m walking to my office once or twice a week by someone asking if I’m lost and looking for one of the intro psych experiments.

61. Sometimes when I’m bored or stressed out, I chase my cats around the apartment. I find their looks of annoyance endlessly uplifting for some reason.

62. Despite my klutziness, I’m really good at yoga poses that involve standing on one leg. I am terrible at downward-facing dog, though.

63. During high school, I drove a silver Chrysler Lebaron convertible with a broken speedometer that overheated so often that I kept a gallon of water in the trunk at all times.

64. Quite appropriately, I drove this car to go see Cake in concert.

65. My second major in college was Law and Society, but I never considered going into law.

66. I spent a summer couch-hopping in Boston. The only job I managed to get was a shelf-straightening position in the Harvard library system. I literally spent eight hours a day pulling books forward and then pushing them back so that they were all flush against the edge of the shelf. I didn’t even have to check see if they were in order.

67. I was obsessed with dinosaurs when I was little. I had a set of blow-up dinosaurs that I loved and I apparently spent the better part of a year refusing to change out a dress that had pterodactyls printed on it.

68. I spent a large part of my childhood watching Labyrinth and tend to quote sections of it at random.

69. I have phone issues. I’m not shy, but for some reason I can’t really bring myself to call people. I’m afraid that said phone call would be terribly obtrusive and awkward as a result.

70. I really love things like subatomic particles and dark matter. I’ve never taken physics, so I don’t really understand any of it, but I’m still captivated by quarks and charms and the like.

71. My father was a staunch atheist that refused to lie to his children about Santa Claus. So, I was that kid in kindergarten who spilled the beans about his nonexistence.

72. I have played Myst and all of its sequels twice through. I stayed on campus one spring break and my roommates came back to find our quad covered in scraps of paper with badly drawn maps and symbols on them.

73. Because I grew up in Texas, I will never get used to real seasons. When the temperature drops, my first reaction is that it’s just a fluke, and I tend to get confused about it still being cold three months later. By the time spring rolls around, I feel betrayed by the weather and I don’t trust that the warmth will hold until about July.

Damn you, Jack Frost!

74. I hate tying shoelaces. It’s too fussy an inefficient, and besides, Velcro has made laces obsolete.

75. My father worked for our local newspaper when I was a kid. Once, he took me with him when he was writing a story about a local sighting of the Virgin Mary’s face on the side of an old refrigerator.

Knitterly happenings and acquisitions
Guess what?! I have a finished object to show you! Aren't you excited?

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My friends Van and Jen came in to visit from Chicago this weekend, which gave me a much needed break from Finals Madness. While they were here, Van and I got to talking and both decided that we needed a pair of yoga socks. After some searching, I found that I had a bunch of Malabrigo left from this, and set to work. Van did some swatching before he started his to get some practice on the binding off/casting on bit than makes the heel opening, and his swatch turned out to be a perfect fit for Fatty. He was actually completely unperturbed by us putting the yoga sock on him, and only looks like he's struggling in this picture.
Yarn - the leftover Malabrigo in bobby blue. Probably about 3/4 of a skein.
Needles - 32" addi turbo size 5s for most of it, with the ribbing on the openings worked on 29" size 3 Inox grays.
Pattern - my own, cobbled together from the free pattern I found on this website and the picture of this not-free pattern. Despite the cankle look in the first picture, I wanted the tops to be a little slouchy and the instep to be fitted, so I worked some random increases and decreases on the top half. I also did the heel openings as an afterthought heel with waste yarn.

Best moment of the day


While they were here, Jen and Van made delicious guacamole! There is always good food when we get together, which is awesome, since the quickest way to my heart is through my tastebuds. The avocado and garlicky goodness was devoured in the blink of an eye.

Well, technically, it was the best moment of the weekend, but who's counting?