Updates

Sorry for the absence of late, the last week has been kinda weird. Despite the non-blogging weirdness, I do have some recent developments to report!

I: I'm a joiner

Well, I joined the Fitted Knits-Along. I'm making a lot of progress on the puff-sleeved cardigan, and you can see it here.

II: Sockpal Yarn!

After much deliberation, I orderd the yarn for my sockapalooza socks online last week, and it came in yesterday!




It's Yarn Botanika merino/tencel in the colorway bluebells. My pal really didn't give me much to go on in terms of pattern or colors, so I scoped out her blog and saw she tended to gravitate towards pale greens and sky blues. I think this yarn fits the bill. Now, I have to figure out what pattern to use.

III: Cat update



The fat one's still fat, and has taken to sleeping in strange locations of late. Which is really cute.

Murphy's Law revisited

This morning started out really well. I woke up at a decent hour and made myself some tea, and starting surfing the web until Jon woke up. I was planning to eat a quick breaskfast and then hunker down and do loads of stuff that needed getting done. I've had a bit of trouble jump-starting myself after taking a week or so to myself to unwind after all the research and writing and traveling on delayed flights and all, but today was the day I was going to get back in the competent-grad-student-saddle.

Then my computer froze....so I restarted it thinking it was a fluke. And I got the typical start-up Mac chime, a gray screen, and....nothing. Just a horrible clicking noise that (I swear to sweet baby Jesus) I'd never heard coming from my computer before. Trying not to panic, I tried restarting again. This time I got the gray screen and a folder with a question mark. Which I took as a bad sign.

And I was right. Several phone calls to Mac helplines and visits to computer people (all done by the generous and stalwart Jon, because I was, you know, panicking) revealed that my hard drive was completely, totally, irrevocably fried. No data can be recovered and I need a new one. I now have a brick. There went my productive day.

I decided to take the day off. Last week when I got my stipend, I ordered all of this from Adagio Teas:


A package with that mug with a cool strainer/steeper thing and sample packs of teas in a bunch of different flavors to try out came yesterday, and I was thrilled. I've been trying to distract myself from the fact that I just lost the entire contents of my hard drive (I mean, I have the really important stuff backed up, but still) by drinking a lot of tea, re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and knitting the puff-sleeved cardigan. I'm half-way done on the yoke now.

Sigh.

The return of knitting content

Ok, as promised, here's some actual knitting content!

The Exchequered scarf is clicking along at a decent pace. I'm now to the checkered midsection, and I'm planning to keep chugging along until I'm out of yarn and then graft it to the other end section. Since it's a ridiculously easy pattern now that the check is established, and since I kind of totally hate knitting scarves (the length! The utter lack of any variety! Gah!), I've decided it will be my travel knitting. There's no real rush for a squishy double-knit scarf now that the temperatures in the mid-80s anyway, right?

Since the scarf is on the backburner, I started a couple of new projects. First, I'm working on a pair of pomatomus socks. I started them last week when I was sick and have since already completed the first sock!

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I've been wanting to make them for awhile, and the pattern has not disappointed me so far. I also decided to use this as an oppurtunity to further my appreciation fro toe-up sock construction. I wanted to be able to use the entire skein for once, and not get left with a whole lot of yarn at the end. Man, this puppy turned out tall! Also, the cats gave their stamp of approval when they carried it off in the middle of it's inaugural photoshoot.

I also started the puff-sleeved cardigan from Fitted Knits. I bought the book originally for this design, because it's just so damn cute. I'm using the organic wool/cotton yarn I got awhile ago that I originally planned to make into a Ribena-inspired vest. I swatched and cast on for the vest no less than 3 times, and it just wasn't working. It seems to have taken quite nicely to the cardigan though.


I'm about 1/3 of the way through the raglan increases. I ended up reworking the pattern a bit because my gauge was larger than the pattern called for. Which was soooo easy! Not only is it knit top-down in one peice, which automatically makes it customizable, but the author included a section in the book on how to resize garments....and used this sweater as an example! Funnily enough, I'm more or less following the directions for the 36" size, even though the finished product will boast a bust measurement of 43".

On a somewhat unrelated note, look at those stitch markers! I love them. Jon's mom got them for me when she was up in the Upper Peninsula. Heather, if you're reading this, I'm also grateful for the saffron bread you left here when you passed through last. It did not last long.

In really exciting knitting news, I now have knitting buddies who don't live hundreds of miles away! I went to brunch with a wonderfully sane and funny person in my program (which, I'll have you know, is quite a feat in my cohort. Some of them are just nuts.), a friend of hers, and her sister. It was lovely and refreshing. On the way home I cut through the market and picked up this geranium.


It's a present for Jon. Our friend Van has several houseplants and each time we've visited Jon's mentioned wanting to get some for our apartment. I have no knowledge of plants and asked the woman selling them what would be best for an apartment and she suggested this. Jon was thrilled and has dubbed it Francis. Long live Francis!

PS - We've already established that I have a deep, abiding love of reality TV. Its not surprising, then, that I have become obsessed with So You Think Can Dance? It's got everything you could really want: acrobatic moves that make someone getting hurt a real possibility, attractive young people in ridiculous outfits, and a judge that is quite probably drunker than Paula Abdul. Seriously, Mary Murphy is just insane! Lots of weird screaming and swaying. I feel bad for the judges sitting on either side of her as she must smell like a barrel of paint thinner.

Movie list...but still no knitting content

Tomorrow, I promise to post actual knitting content.
In the meantime, movie time! I got this list from CynCyn, and like her, the ones I've seen are bolded and the ones I own are italicized. Lift it, read through, and indicate your own seen it/own it status and then add 3 at the end!

01. Trainspotting
02. Shrek
03. M
04. Dogma
05. Strictly Ballroom
06. The Princess Bride
07. Love Actually
08. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
09. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
11. Reservoir Dogs
12. Desperado
13. Swordfish
14. Kill Bill Vol. 1
15. Donnie Darko
16. Spirited Away
17. Better Than Sex
18. Sleepy Hollow
19. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
20. The Eye
21. Requiem for a Dream
22. Dawn of the Dead
23. The Pillow Book
24. The Italian Job
25. The Goonies
26. Baseketball
27. The Spice Girls Movie
28. Army of Darkness
29. The Color Purple
30. The Safety of Objects
30. Can’t Hardly Wait
32. Mystic Pizza
33. Finding Nemo
34. Monsters Inc.
35. Circle of Friends
36. Mary Poppins
37. The Bourne Identity
38. Forrest Gump
39. A Clockwork Orange
40. Kindergarten Cop
41. On The Line
42. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
43. Final Destination
44. Sorority Boys
45. Urban Legend
46. Cheaper by the Dozen
47. Fierce Creatures
48. Dude, Where’s My Car
49. Ladyhawke
50. Ghostbusters
51. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
52. Back to the Future
53. An Affair To Remember
54. Somewhere In Time
55. North By Northwest
56. Moulin Rouge
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
58. The Wizard of Oz
59. Zoolander
60. A Walk to Remember
61. Chicago
62. Vanilla Sky
63. The Sweetest Thing
64. Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead
65. The Nightmare Before Christmas
66. Chasing Amy
67. Edward Scissorhands
68. Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
69. Muriel’s Wedding
70. Croupier
71. Blade Runner
72. Cruel Intentions
73. Ocean’s Eleven
74. Magnolia
75. Fight Club
76. Beauty and the Beast
77. Much Ado About Nothing
78. Dirty Dancing
79. Gladiator
80. Ever After
81. Braveheart
82. What Lies Beneath
83. Regarding Henry
84. The Dark Crystal
85. Star Wars
86. The Birds
87. Beaches
88. Cujo
89. Maid In Manhattan
90. Labrynth
91. Thoroughly Modern Millie
92. His Girl Friday
93. Being John Malkovich
94. Run Lola Run
95. The Color of Paradise
96. Ghost in the Shell
97. Tron
98. Tomb Raider
99. Almost Famous
100. Alice in Wonderland
101. Dr. Strangelove
102. Kairo
103. Stir of Echoes
104. Lilo & Stitch
105. Brazil
106. Heathers
107. Talk to Her
108. Memento
109. Young Frankenstein
110. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
111. Mulholland drive
112. Dogville
113. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
114. Lost in Translation
115. Some Like it Hot
16. Punch-Drunk Love
117. Gohatto
118. Full Metal Jacket
119. Death on the Nile
117. Practical Magic
118. Amelie
119. Butterfly Effect
120. Cast Away
121. Tangled
122. Frequency
123. The Others
124. American Beauty
125. The Last Samurai
126. Ghost World
127. Taxi Driver
128. The Royal Tenenbaums
129. Cube
130. Nosferatu (Herzog version?)
131. Nuovo cinema Paradiso
132. Koroshiya Ichi
133. The Thing (John Carpenter)
134. J?bei Ninp?ch? (a.k.a. Ninja Scroll)
135. The Kingdom (all parts)
136. Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo
137. Secretary
138. Hellraiser
139. Avalon
140. Heat
141. Out of Africa
142. True Romance
143. Goodbye Lenin
144. Vengo
145. Pulp Fiction
146. Crazy/Beautiful
147. Grease
148. Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
149. Four Rooms
150. Festen
151. Tillsammans/Together
152. Central Do Brasil
153. Closer
154. Rounders
155. Sliding Doors
156. Stand by Me
157. The Shawshank Redemption
158. The Green Mile
159. Velvet Goldmine
160. Dracula 2000
161. King Arthur
162. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
163. Top Secret!
164. The Virgin Suicides
165. Camelot
166. The Emperor’s Wife
167. Gormenghast
168. Singin’ in the Rain
169. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
170. Team America: World Police
171. 42nd Street
172. Crossing Delancy
173. 50 First Dates
174. Iris
175. Ella Enchanted
176. Garden State
177. Titanic
178. The Bumblebee Flies Anyway
179. Billy Elliot
180. Meet the Feebles
181. Passion of the Christ
182. Brassed Off!
183. when Harry met Sally
184. Before Sunrise
185. Dead Poets Society
186. The Black Stallion
187. Lord of the Flies
188. Sense & Sensibility
189. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves
190. The Talented Mr. Ripley
191. The Indian Runner
192. The Faculty
193. Interview With The Vampire
194. Formula 17
195. Frida
196. Grave of the Firefiles
197. Big Fish
198. The American President
199. What About Bob?
200. Crimson Tide
201. Pieces of April
202. Resident Evil
203. Walking and Talking
204. The Notebook
205. Amadeus
206. Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion
207. Batteries Not Included
208. The Emperor’s New Groove
209. Adventure’s In Babysitting
210. Better Off Dead
211. Legally Blonde
212. Shrek 2
213. Seven
214. Bound
215. Blue
216. White
217. The Red Violin
218. Cat Balou
219. Breakfast at Tiffany's
220. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (the original)
221. Neverending Story
222. The Terminal
223. The Last Unicorn
224. The Color of Fear (documentary)
225. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
226. The Seven Samurai
227. The Big Lebowski
228. City of God

Warning: No Actual Knitting Content

Guess what! I'm not dead....just lazy! Basically, I meant to write this post, like, a week ago when I got back to Ann Arbor, but my natural slothfulness took over. My apologies. Let's play catch-up!

Part I: Continued Adventures in Minneapolis
Even though we were sick, as detailed in my last post, Dani the Wonder Friend decided that we should spend our time together doing awesome fun stuff! I had my reservations (being sick and whiny and all) but she did eventually convince me to leave her apartment and venture out. We went shopping at a super-cool vintage store where I got these goodies:

Despite the terrible I-took-this-in-a-tiny-changing-room quality of the photos, they're actually quite nice little dresses. The brown one has a lovely brocade pattern and Dani and I decided that next time we're together we're making our friends have a proper fancy-dress sit-down dinner to show off our new duds.

Then we went to lunch at a nice Thai place where I found the cure for headcolds:


Behold Tom Yum soup! Seriously, it was perfect. It's lemon juice and chili pepper, so it clears out the sinuses and perks you up. Next time you get a cold, I strongly advise you to check this stuff out.

We caught a couple of movies before I left, too. We saw Waitress, which was actually really adorable without being saccharine, and Pirates of the Carribbean. Pirates was alternately awesome and really kind of painful, so I kind of half reccomend it? If you've got a spare three hours and you don't mind unresolved plot lines? This week (sadly, not with Dani) I saw 28 Weeks Later, which I totally reccommend if you liked the first one. Awesomeness abounds with killer zombies.

Part 2: Taking a Turn for the Worst/Self-indulgent
So....after having a blast with Dani despite the massive production of mucus, I got to the airport praying that at least one of my planes would be on time. They weren't. Because apparently I'm cursed with the planes. I mean, seriously, I calculated it and in the last month I've been on 8 airplanes form 3 different airlines, and every single one was delayed at least an hour. It's getting hard not to take it personally.

But I digress. I got there, only to find out that the plane was going to be delayed for, oh, about 2 1/2 hours. This is how I responded:


I was all annoyed and stuff until they got back on the speakers and said, no actually, our "wheels-up" time will be 4 hours late. 4 hours! How ridiculous is that? So I responded like this:


Luckily everything was so delayed in Chicago that I actually made my connecting flight. Thanks plane gods for throwing me a bone, even if it did mean I rolled into Ann Arbor at 3 in the morning.

The next day I woke up feeling aboslutely wretched, probably because I'd spent so much time not eating or sleeping and breathing recycled air in airports and planes, which can't help you get over a cold. The bad news is I spent the last week shuffling around my apartment wrapped in a balnket clutching a box of tissues feeling to pissed off at airlines to blog about it.

But I'm back! The good news is I'm okay now. And I promise that I'll have plenty of fun knitting pictures for you next time I post.

Fuck you, Murphy's Law!

Man, I must have some messed up karma or something, because because everything that could have gone wrong since leaving Houston has. Well, I guess not everything, but most things. Let me start at the begining:

1) the plane trip to Minnesota:
So, yeah, here's what happened. I got to the airport in plenty of time and checked in. I got pulled out of the security line ("randomly," of course, like always. I don't know if it's my affiliation with revolutionary politics, or the fact that I look vaguely Middle Eastern or what, but the Houston security dudes are totally suspicious of me), but that was alright. Whatever. So, I go to my gate, plop down with some knitting and....the lane is delayed for an hour and half.

Eventually, we get on the plane (yay!)....and pull away from the gate (yay!)....and.....sit there. The captain then comes on to tell us that there's weather issues in Dallas, where I had a layover, and that we won't be flying for another 3 HOURS. So we get off the plane and I get rebooked on a direct flight to Minneapolis (yay!)....on another airline (gah).

I leave the gate and terminal, and have to pick up my baggage at the lost luggage counter at airline #2 (which took forever), change terminals, and check in again. Only now it's later and there are a bazillion people in the airport so it takes forever. this flight is delayed an hour and a half too, but I do eventually make it to Minneapolis.

2) The gigantic socialist thingy:
Remember that? I was totally psyched because a)nothing's better than spending Memorial Day weekend plotting to over through the capitalist system and b) my bestest buddy ever was housing me! Sweet!

Except that not even the most hardcore socialist can really handle 30 straight hours in one room talking about dialectic materialism. Seriously, we were all zombies by the end. But that wasn't too bad. The bad thing was....

3) attack of the headcold
...I got totally sick. Jon was sick last week, and must have passed it to me at some point when we were not sleeping enough or eating properly during said gigantic socialist thingy. I was feeling kinda nasty on the second day, but didn't think much of it, and the third day I was really tired, but who wouldn't be at that point?

I'd decided to stay in Minneapolis a few extra days to bond with Dani the Wonder Friend, and we had plans! Awesome plans! Yesterday, our plans involved a baseball game.

See how happy we are? Dani and her nachos and me and my delicious bratwurst.

Too bad we left in the seventh inning. We couldn't make it, we were tired and congested and generally grumpy. And today, we both woke up feeling absolutely horrible. Seriously, I didn't even know the human body could produce this much mucus! We've spent the day whimpering staring vacantly into space.

This is where Murphy's Law gets cruel. I haven't seen Dani in like, 6 months! And instead of hanging out together and being generally awesome, we're napping in separate rooms. I swear to god, if something else goes wrong its a government conspiracy.

I did finish the other end section of the scarf, though. So that's good news.

Shenanigans in Houston

Soooo......I'm leaving Houston in a couple of hours, but before I go, I wanted to catch everybody up on all the cool, fun stuff that happened while I was down here. I tried to keep you posted as it all happened, I really did, but my ungodly workoad (writing two papers up for publiation and trying to get the data collection for two separate projects underway) ate up all of my time. Sorry about that.

Cool thing #1: My sister and I got tattoos!

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We got them a couple of days ago, but we'd been thinking about it for awhile now. Leila already has a tattoo. They're both variations of the arrows of chaos symbol (which I mostly just think looks cool), so they're from the same family but not identical. Getting it was surprisingly not at all painful, and I think it hurt less than when I used to bleach my hair with industrial strength chemicals to dye it funny colors. I totally psyched myself out, though, right before the guy actually started tattooing me. I'm such a loser.

Cool Thing #2: 3rd Annual Fat Girl Face Off

A couple of years ago, my sister and her friends decided to have an eating contest and dubbed it the Fat Girl Face Off. It's turned into kind of an ordeal around here. Last year, the girls let Jon participate as long as he dressed in drag, and he kicked their asses.

So, who took home the gold for eating a ton of tacos, doughnuts and watermelon?

Sam did! It was a rousing return to form for the 1st annual champion. Which means....

Jon lost. He went from reigning champion to last place. I was his coach and I was truly shamed by his dismal performance. He didn't even bring his C game! I've since dropped him as my athlete and adopted Mandy (who came in at a very close second) who was basically coachless.

Cool Thing #4: Leila finished her scarf!

I made her frolic in the backyard so I could take pictures. I'm very proud.

And finally, Cool Thing #5: IHOP!

Man, I love IHOP. Always have. I met my friend Lisa there for breakfast yesterday. Here she is stealing ketchup from a nearby table:

Everytime I go to IHOP, I order the happy face pancakes from the kids menu. I know it's silly, but those things are tasty. Also, I really believe that few things in life are more fun than getting food that's happy to see you and gleefully eating it, especially when you pour strawberry syrup on it and pretedn it's blood. I guess it awakens a werid Godzilla impulse in me or something.

So that's what happened while I was in Houston. I'm flying to Minneapolis today to hang out with Dani (who the penguin on the sidebar is named after) and go to another of those big socialist thingies.

FO: Ampergrabbers

The ampergrabbers are done!

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And just in time, too. I finished them last night and wove in all the ends this morning. I was running out of time because I'm leaving tomorrow, and I certainly didn't want to leave my sister stranded with just one glove, looking all King of Pop-ish, you know? You just don't do that to someone you love. Anyway, they're done, they look cute, and she loves them! Yay! Everyone's a winner!

Yarn - 1 skein of Mama Llama self-striping sock yarn (100% superwash wool, 430 yards) in the Earth colorway from Kpixie. It's a colorway that's really grown on me. My first imprssion was that it was a bit too Christmas-y with all the red and green. My next impression was that it was too brown. But, actually, that burnt orange color is a deeply saturated gold. And the red and geen are these lovely jewel tones. The yarn has a lot of lustern and depth to it.

Needles - set of 5 size 1 bamboo dpns. I think they're clover, but I'm not sure. I was a bit worried about using them because I have freakishly strng man-hands that tend to bend flimsy wooden needles. They're all a little bowed out now, but still usable.

Pattern - I knit them cuff to fingers and made it up as I went along. I don't even have notes! Basically, I ripped of the Jaywalker pattern for the chevron and ripped off the ribbing on the sides from the Ampersand pattern. I made the thumb gusset by scanning the directions from the peeakboo mittens pattern, and increased in a 1x1 rib. For the fingers, I used 1/4 of the existing stitches plus 3 that I cast on over the gaps (I picked up stitches from the cast on edge for the adjacent finger).

Seriously, the construction is super-simple and intuitive. I did most of the knitting in movie theaters and on planes, so it's totally zombie-riffic. I'm pretty sure I'll end up making a bunch more pairs for me and everyone I know.

PS - see the flower in the top picture? That's a magnolia from the tree outside our living room window. I adore magonlias and they're one of the things I miss most about Texas. Sadly, they're not yet in full bloom, and I'm leaving before I'll get to see them in all their splendor.

FO: Thelonious knee socks

Presenting Thelonious:

Yep, they're done! I finished them a couple of days ago, but I've been too swamped to post about them yet. I really like the way they turned out! They're warm and comfy, but fit snugly and aren't too bulky. They'll be perfect for the slightly chilly early spring/late fall days (but not quite as perfect for a warm day in late spring in Texas). Also, isn's my family's backyard pretty? I can't tell you how nice it was to take pictures in real sunlight.

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Here's the specs:
Yarn - 2 skeins of Mountain Colors Bearfoot (60% wool, 40% mohair; 350 yards) in purple mountain. The yarn was really nice to work with. It was sightly thicker than the sock yarn I've been using, which makes it perfect for knee socks, and the mohair makes it a little fuzzy too. I really love the colors, with the bright purple flecks poping up out of the navy.
Needles - 29" size 1 Susan Bates quicksilver circulars. They're kind of old and beat up, but hooray for magic loop! I also used a 47" size 0 addi turbo circular and a 39" size 2 addi turbo circular, but only for, like, a minute.
Pattern - Thelonious by Cookie A, I made the small size. The pattern's really well-written and easy to follow....but I made bajillion modifcations. I'm totally planning to make just a regular pair though! Here's what I changed:

• I knit them toe-up (using the figure 8 cast on described here) instead of cuff-down so I could work the calf increases as I went. This was the first pair of toe-up socks I've made, and I think I'm hooked. I always end up with way more yarn leftover than I thought I would and I tend to make my socks on the shorter side because I don't want to figure out how to add calf shaping before start the cuff. Two birds with one stone, eh? One thing I didn't change when I went toe-up was the heel. Cookie wrote the pattern with a ribbed flap heel, and I really wanted to keep it. I figured out how to work the toe-up heel flap from the Widdershins pattern, and just replaced the slipped-stitch heel with ribbing.
• As previously documented, I found that the original lace stitch didn't work well with this yarn or my gauge or wahtever, so I replaced it with a cable panel. It's nothing fancy, just a 4-stitch wide 6-row repeate of open cables:

row 1: k, p2, k

row 2: RT, LT

row 3: p, k2, p

row 4: p, then cross the two knit stitches in whichever direction you prefer (I had them mirrored), p

row 5: p, k2, p

row 6: LT, RT

• After knitting the leg charts as written (albeit in reverse), I wrote charts for the upper leg. I continued the cables up the front without moving them, but kept the back panels going based on the logic of the harts in the pattern until they crossed. I wrote two charts because I got all fancy and decided I wanted the crosses in the back to mirror each other. I am inordinatley proud of this.
• I worked calf shaping starting with the charts I wrote by increasing 1 stitch at the begining and end of each needle (placing the shaping on the sides of the sock instead ofthe center abck) every 4 rows. I put the shaping there because placing it in the back would have disrupted the crossing panels. Also, it makes a pretty leaf shape.
• When the sock was about 2.5" shorter than I wanted, I switched to size 0 needles and worked 1 x 1 ribbing. I initially decreased from 112 sts to 100 sts, and then decreased an additional 10 sts every 5 rows. I bound off loosely using size 2 needles.

Tomorrow I'll tell you some stories about my stay in Texas so far, since I won't have much knitting-related to report on.

I'm still alive!

Hey everybody! I'm still alive, and I'm in Houston! I finally convinced my mom to get high-speed internet, so I thought I'd drop y'all a line.

Well, truth be told, we used to have it, and then my sister's computer broke, like, 2 years ago, but nobody ever called a technician to fix it or work it so that the family computer could get in on the high-speed action. But, we were still paying for it. My family rolls like that.

Anyway, it's getting late and I have to watch The Last Unicorn with m sister and her friend, so I'll be brief. Progress has been made on the ampergrabbers!

This s the first pair of gloves I've made, and they're actually quite fun. I've only made afterthought thumbs, so I decided to make this a learning experience and worked a gusset instead. I did hit a pitfall, though.

See how the middle fingers are tiny? Well, I knit them the same length as the outer fingers, but they turned out all stumpy. After far too much head-scratching, I figured out that it's the biasing that's doing it, so I picked out the bound off edge and kept knitting until they all matched. See?

Actually, if you look closely at that picture, you'll notice that the glove is being modelled not big my gigantic blond boyfriend, but my adorable younger (though older-looking) sister. That's because Jon was wrong (as I suspected) about the glove being big enough to fit his giant catcher mitts. But they fit Leila's fine! HA!

Ok. That's all for now. I do have stories (knitting and non-knitting related) to tell you. I'll just say that this has been a wacky month.

Happy May Day

First things first: it's May Day! I prefer to celebrate the International Worker's day part of it, and ignore the whole Loyalty Day thing, but do whatever works for you. so go out there and fight the man! Or be loyal to him! Or you can listen to this funny song that has nothing to do with either.

In other news, I'm going homw to Texas for a month! My flight leaves this evening (although, I have a really bizarre and stupid layover in chicago. Not only is it, like, 45 seconds from Detroit, but it's also in the wrong direction to get to Houston). I'm not entirely sure how well I'll be able to keep up with the blog, since my family still has dial-up, but I'll give it my best shot. In case you don't hear from me in an absurdly long time, because dial-up totally sucks, I'll leave you with this:

This is the lace mohair sweater I'm working on. It's a pretty standard top-down raglan, with a mock turtleneck. It's got lace panels (picked up from Hedera) running done the body and arms. I haven't blogged about it before because there wasn't anything substantial to report, but today I finished the yoke! I'm putting it on hold because I don't have the space to bring it with me to Texas, so I won't get back to working on it until June. No rush for a mohair sweater this time of year, though.

Don't worry, dear readers, I will keep my hands busy. I've got the other knee sock to make and supplies for another pair of socks. I may start orangina while I'm down there. And on the plane, I'll work on this some more:

Remember the amperwalkers? My movie-knitting? Well, the colors are really more Jon-ish, so I offered it to him and it's turning into fingerless gloves instead of socks. So...I guess I should call them ampergrabbers?

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:

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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.