Inexperienced criminals...

...do things like this.

Ah, Christmas.

If you would like to read about our a-little-more-exciting-than-we-wanted-it-to-be Christmas morning, it's here on my husband's blog.

I love my garbage collector.

I'm sure there's a more PC name for a garbage man (waste management technician?), but I don't care. Our trash is normally picked up twice a week, but due to the ice there haven't been any dumpster-emptyings for just over two weeks. It really did not help at all that Christmas Day fell during that two-week time period. There was a pile of bags at least as big as the 4-cubic yard dumpster right in front of it. Not to mention the five bags or so we had in the house, waiting to go out as soon as we could get within 20 feet of the actual dumpster.

The garbage truck came today. The dumpster was emptied, refilled, and emptied again. Lots of full trash bags are now out of my house and awaiting the next pick up on Friday. Hallelujah!

Now I'm just waiting for the recycle truck so I can be rid of my small mountain of empty boxes and milk jugs.

Eris, sans zipper

All done except for the zipper! And since I haven't yet bought a zipper, and since we are snowed in, I am considering it to be done. Once I buy a zipper it will go back to an "undone" status.

Just a thought.

I cannot wait for the days to start getting longer. 3:30 is just way too early to have to turn on the lights.

Eris: Not Quite

So here is a photo of Eris on the night of November 30. As you can see, I finished the body on November but not the sleeves. Even though my goal was to finish before December, I am still really happy with how much I accomplished.

Eris, divided.

Just divided the body and sleeve sections. It looks a touch small but I tried it on and it seems okay; I think that if it does turn out a tiny bit small I can probably block it bigger.

Eris, take two.

So after several days, a lot of chocolate, and a little bit of alcohol, I finally felt (mostly) not upset about my mistake and was able to re-start Eris. Here is the collar, half done and with the stitches picked up to start the second half.

Irritated as I am, I really am glad that I re-knit this. The first try had several small mistakes that bugged me but not enough to make me rip it and start again. Once I discovered I'd used the wrong gauge, though, I obviously had to re-do the thing. This time around I was more familiar with both the chart symbols and how it looked on the needles, so I caught mistakes right away and could fix them.


I'm much happier with this collar.

What goes up must come down.

So apparently November is National Just About Everything Month (Write a Novel, Blog Every Day, Knit a Sweater, etcetera). I have had the yarn for a few sweaters for several months now and so I decided to take the plunge and make a sweater this month. Right from the start there were problems. I didn't have enough of such-and-such yarn to do that project, that sweater wouldn't look good in that color, and so forth. After doing some gauge swatches, I settled on making Rogue. I got perfect gauge and even though I didn't have quite enough yarn, I was able to order more - in the same dyelot, even! - until disaster struck. It wouldn't print. Now, we don't have a printer so any printing jobs include copying files, traveling to the library, checking out a computer, printing files, and returning home. Since I was at the library, there was nothing I could do except retry to print the same thing that I had. Not happening. I must have done something to mess the pattern up when copying it. Plan B. (Well, C, actually, because I was planning on making a Hand-to-Hand Aran [Ravelry link, you have to sign up] until I decided I didn't like that yarn worked up at that gauge.) I was able to print the pattern for Eris, and I had good yarn for it that worked up to gauge. The collar went beautifully. I adore the complex cables. So other than several mistakes, doesn't it look great?


I picked up all the stitches around the edge (one of my least favorite knitting jobs) to start the body of the sweater. I read ahead in the pattern to make sure I knew what I was doing. Everything was clear except there were no specific instructions for the raglan increases, so I checked to see if they were supposed to be done a certain way. Lo and behold, I discovered that I had been working the perfect gauge for the BODY portion of the sweater all the way through my lovely collar.

My knitting will be in time-out until I have eaten enough chocolate to get over this.

Free barrette holder pattern

I had one of these barrette holders when I was young and I may someday make one for my daughters. I thought I'd post it in case anyone else was interested - barrettes are not the easiest things to store neatly.

Playhouse

These are just the cutest playhouses ever. I wish we had a card table.

Slippers

The slippers turned out well and were well received. They did turn out to be the right size to fit the recipient in about three years, but you can't get everything right.

Sobering news

I just found out that my friend Amanda's little boy, Noah, was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, a fatal genetic disorder. Please pray for him and his family. They are missionaries in Mexico City. If you are able and willing to donate toward some of his medical expenses, you can find more information here.

Knitting by the seat of my pants

Scene: The girls are napping. We have a birthday party to attend in less than 24 hours, and I haven't come up with a gift idea that I like. I am suddenly seized with knitterly inspiration.

No pattern.

No gauge swatch.

The exact size of the recipient is unknown to me.

I cast on anyway.

12 hours before the party, and I have this:



They're fulling in the washer while I have my fingers crossed. Update tomorrow. (Assuming I remember to post; I've been forgetting every little thing this past month.)

How cool are you?

Do you ever wonder how popular you are? Do you ever wonder if your internet friends are real people? Is that rental house on Craigslist the real deal or does someone in Nigeria just want you to wire them money?

Find out on Divvs, the site that gives you online credibility but without revealing personal details. Go sign up!

March, march, march.

Have any of you seen the Algorithm March? I was mystified until I watched this video. Now I get it.

Sort of.

Let's Cooking!

So anyway, I ran across this song today and found it absolutely hilarious. Even if you don't speak Japanese, you can kinda tell what they're saying: something along the lines of "the four pork product friends", "we sound so yummy", and my personal favorite, "discover the fun of ham."

You'll never look at pig meat the same again.

Sorry about that.

I just haven't felt much like blogging lately. Rest assured that I am still here, though probably most of my readers have given up on me by now. :-)

Vote early, vote often

So I have an entry in The Loopy Ewe's Q1-08 challenge, which was to knit something you've never knit before or try a new technique. Go look through the gallery and vote for your favourite by sending an e-mail to susanATtheloopyeweDOTcom!

(Should I tell you which entry to vote for? Well, I could, but I feel like that would be cheating.)

Montholutions

So I didn't get the bedroom completely organized, but it's much better than it was. I cleaned out a boatload of dust (far more than I imagined there was) and got rid of several things that have been lingering around.

So now for April. I have a couple of goals: to get back in the habit of flossing and massaging my gums most nights, and to exercise three times a week.

No photos today because I'm too lazy.

The Domestic Demi-Goddess

So I have been baking my way through How to be a Domestic Goddess* by Nigella Lawson. I don't believe I've mentioned it before, because even my husband claims that I never told him before last night.

Last night it was the Butterscotch Layer Cake's turn, and it turned out okay. It looked beautiful (much more so before I cut it, but I had already started cutting when Bob said "You should take a picture! You should blog this!") but the flavors just didn't do it for me. It sounded so yummy, with caramel, cream cheese icing, and the batter for the cake - yes, I always taste it before I bake it - was absolutely delicious. Somehow when it was assembled it seemed like the flavors were all competing instead of complementing each other.** I do think that the recipe has great potential, and with a bit of tinkering I'm sure I could come up with a version that is more suited to my tastes. However, I don't think that I will take the time to do that, because the next cake on the list is Boston Cream Pie... mmm. Creamy is my texture of choice.

Anyone want to come over for a piece of butterscotch cake?

*My favorite book title of all time. I wish I'd thought of it first.

**A disclaimer, should Mrs. Lawson ever happen to read this post (which I seriously doubt): I am not saying that you wrote a terrible recipe, but simply that we have different tastes. At least this time. I like lots of your other recipes.

I'm a taco.

What's your Q-dentity?

Quote

"If we expect to enjoy our life, we will have to learn to be joyful in all of it, not just at stated intervals when we can get time or when we have nothing else to do."

-Laura Ingalls Wilder

Montholutions

Yes, I know that's not really a word.

Last year I made two resolutions: To pay off our car loan and to make six pairs of socks. And, for the first time ever, I achieved both my goals. (At least, I finished on January 2nd, which was close enough for me.)

There are so many things I want to do that I have decided to try "montholutions" - changing one thing per month, in hopes that by the end of the month it will have become habit so I'll continue doing it as I work on my new goal.

Yes, it's a bit late, but I've been debating over what I should resolve for February. Lowering our electric bill? Finishing some long-deserted project? Giving my bedroom a serious organizing?

I think that I will go with the organizing. It's something I really need to do, I've been motivated to work on it lately, and I decided to start with my bedroom because of something my friend Holly once said. I can't quote her exactly, but it was something along the lines of "One's bedroom should be a restful place, a peaceful refuge within the home." I sleep fine in my bedroom, but lately it has become more and more difficult to find things I need and to walk through the room in the dark. I'm embarrassed for anyone to come in and see the mess, and, most of all, for the past couple of months I get a sore throat if I don't close the closet door at night. I think that calls for some serious dustbusting.

Think how pleasant it will be for me to sit and knit in my newly reorganized bedroom!

Lotsa stuff

Hi! I have, um, a lot to blog about since I've been playing hooky for a while.

Here's a sock:

You'll just have to trust me that there's a finished pair. I made these pretty long, about 10" from cuff to top of heel flap, and finished with enough yarn that I could have made them an inch or two longer. It still amazes me that plain old yarn can turn into socks. Every time.

I have begun attending a monthly knit night that meets at the home of a friend. Most of the women who come are brand-new knitters, but last week there was a woman who had been spinning and knitting for several years and it was really nice to discuss various techniques with her. Since she has eight years of spinning experience, I told her that I wanted to start spinning again and asked her opinion of wheel brands. She happened to have an extra (broken) wheel that she offered to give me! Yes. Yes, I'll take it.




It's an unfinished Ashford Traditional. The conrod joint is broken and it's missing a tension rod and one of the flyer hooks (a couple of owners ago it sat in a garage for several years, can you tell?), but those will be easy to replace. I've been considering converting it so I can spin left-handed - the way I learned - but that would be a major undertaking so far as I have figured it. But I don't want to have to re-learn to spin right-handed. I'll keep cogitating on it and perhaps I'll come up with an easier solution.

A pair of wrist warmers. These are knit from Urban GypZ Twisted in Rainy Day Blues. I copied Kimberly's but I can't find the specific post to link to. These took just over half a skein; I think I might attempt a matching hat with the leftover yarn. I'm quite pleased with them and they are going to the gift basket.

Finished Carousel socks. The yarn is Claudia's Handpainted fingering in Carousel (that color is now discontinued). The pattern is Yarrow Ribbed Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks. The yarn is pretty but it doesn't feel like it will hold up terribly well, and I think I could have chosen a pattern more suited to the yarn.



Lastly, some anklets in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport. I believe the color is turquoise, and the pair took less than one skein. These are a gift and have been posted to the intended recipient.