Food in My Teeth

Today I was named Producer of The Month for January. The really big boss came and shook my hand. The big boss told me he was proud of me. Regular boss gave a speech about me. My photo was taken so I can be on the work TV all month. I think I had food in my teeth. Even if I didn't, I was super uncomfortable about the whole thing and couldn't make a natural face for the photo. At least I was wearing one of Mom's necklaces and a sweater I knit.

Yes, the month of January. This is not because of something I did last month, or something I did once. This is for superior work every day for the last 6 months. Miss America is crowned for the up coming year not last. I am just petty enough to notice I am the first from my group to get this. After that? Meh.

I do what needs to be done. I help people. I do the job I'm paid for. That's why I'm paid. I get bored so I do more work. I ask people about what they are doing when they fix a problem I can't fix so I can fix it next time. Or actually, since I don't have the authority to do anything how to get strait to the people that do. It's surprising where they end up. It's no more, no less, then I do all the time. Every job I've ever had. My knitting projects. It doesn't feel special.

My test is next week. After months of being told we had to pass it on the first try, I was just told I really had 3 tries. What a complete relief. I should actually pass it on the first try now. Under the pressure I'm not sure I could have pulled it off. So one week, or maybe 3, and I can go back to blogging about knitting. After all, it's the important stuff.

Nobody's Keeping Secrets Around Here

Yesterday was the Secret Santa reveal at work. I wasn't there. I was having the best Christmas shopping day evahhhh. I was collecting my normal wage while doing my own thing. This is the first time in my life I've had a paid day off that wasn't involved with driving cross country or puking. I am doing it again. In fact, it might be the only kind of day off I ever take again. Well, except for that driving cross country trip in June.

And since I can't let anyone down I did go to work and drop off my own Secret Santa gift. I thought is more fun since I didn't label it and I wasn't there. Sneaky. Fun.

So today, on my desk, was my last Secret Santa gift. The big one. There was a book. 2 bars of dark chocolate. And the best part? The part that made me laugh? Index cards! I love it. I also needed them. I was out again.

Working... Every Night and Day

All I've been doing is working, thinking about work, dreaming about work, and then thinking about work some more.

I'm trying to get my insurance license. It's the first time I've been paid to study. Add that into my department head putting his head out on the line to tell his bosses that he can have all 12 people pass on their first try and then my team lead picking me from her group, me who had only been under her for 45ish days, to represent her and I have a big pile of "don't mess up and disappoint anyone" stress and guilt churning in my gut.

I know my team lead is stressed too since she used to work under Big Boss before. I'm not sure what one has to do with the other but she is counting on me to make her look good with him and I can tell she is worried. Google says that 30% of the people that take the test pass that means 70% don't.

So I've been making flash cards. The little stack is the ones I got right. The big stack the ones I need to keep studying. This is an old photo and shows chapters 1 through 4. We are on chapter 14 now so the stack is much much Much larger. However, the stack of the ones I know is larger too. The two are about equal in height right now, the questions I have down pat and the ones I have no idea. We are covering 6 more chapters this week and then the test is next week. I have to call and schedule it but I admit to dragging my feet a little since learning all 6 chapters by next week is intimidating.


But while this is a work post it's not a test post. Instead I'm writing about something cool about my job. It's the break room. Not the Internet cafe, or the skeeball and basketball hoop in the break room at the other end of the building. (I came up with the theory about 3 years ago when taking tours of offices and design studios the cooler the break room the more the company expects and the less of the chance to use it. That is true. I haven't yet touch a skeeball. I'm just happy to make it to the restroom and get caught up on my work email during my break) No, this is about a little child-sized book case in my break room.

The bottom shelf has Connect Four and Monopoly and Chinese Checkers (see above on how usefully they are) and the top shelf is lost in a sea of news papers. It's the middle shelf that is cool. It's a little lending library where people drop off book they are finished with. Most of the time we are pounded with work but once and a while, on an odd Sunday, an 8 hour shift will have 12 calls and we are tied to our desk unable to do anything but wait to be set free. That's when the lending library is so nice.

There are only about 20 books. Most of them are romance novels and then comes the Christan inspirational books, which leads to the christian romance novels. A nice smattering of mysteries with a person that seems to enjoy British ones best. A book on raising chickens is tucked in there and a little SiFi with Robert Silverberg's Lord Valentines Castle. I think the same copy that was on Dad's nightstand most of my childhood years. Sitting between the bodice rippers is an odd copy of Ayn Rand that I always mull over. Ayn Rand, here, among the light reading. However a new book takes the cake. Debbie Macomber just showed up on the shelf. A knitting novel just shows up. Just like that. How cool is my break room?

Things I Like

I like the time change. Ok, not really. However, I did like going to bed an hour early then waking up an hour early. Not only did I get an extra hour of sleep but I got an extra hour of Sunday morning quiet too.

I also like that butter nut squash is in season. I bought 6 tonight. I now have weeks of roasted butternut squash that I can then turn into cream soups, mashed casseroles, or just eaten with butter ahead of me.

I also like how roasting one can raise the temperature in my apartment by 8 degrees. It warm right now but that won't last. 8 degrees can be the difference between really cold and almost hot.

Boom Chanka Bow Booouw

Take it off, Baby, take it aaall off.

Today is the first of the month after working for 90 days (it only feels like 294) and I finally have time in my PTO bank. 3 hours and 14 min. Oh yea! Baby, we are going to have a sick day with that. I'm going to have to have a talk with someone tomorrow.

But seriously, it's been wearing on me knowing I can't call in sick, take off time for my brother's doctor appointments at KU Med, or even have a vacation day. Ok the vacation day I'm just bitter about, the stress is knowing I can't call in sick even when I feel like ass.

So in the spirit of November I'm dedicating to blogging about things I'm thankful for. No. Thankful is too strong a word. I'm thankful for family and friends and that the miners got out alive. My November is for smaller things I like. Things that I appreciate, that make me smile, or that I enjoy. Little happy things. Like 3 hours of paid time off.

Trick-Or-Treat

Slogtober has done well for me. I'll get photos up soon. Speaking of photos I haven't even finished blogging all the projects I knit in Single Skein September.

I was lieing in bed this morning wondering if it was possible to even get out of bed in such a cold room when the heat turned on. It turns out that it was still set to 55F from last spring. Truthfully, I don't mind. I feel that it still counts because I didn't turn it on, and really at colder than 55 I'm not sure I could get out of bed. I was trying to figure out how to call into work with my mind when I heard the click of it turning on. I went ahead and bumped it up to a nice 62F and I can hear it running now. Such a sweet sound.

It's Not You, It's Me

We need to talk. I know we just spent a nice weekend together with my browsing and buying from your sale bin of overstock colors and fall specials.
I've noticed you've been working out with your smoother strands and lighter skeins. You also have a whole new line of sexy colors. It seems fitting that you have raised your prices again. After all, a sweater of your yarn still costs less than a sweater at a yarn store and you are worth it.

But at the rate I knit and more importantly at the rate I buy yarn I can't keep up. We have grown apart and I have to move on.

I'm always going to treasure our time together. The purple Wonderful Wallaby is my favorite hoodie. I love wearing it so much I sleep in it some nights. Your yarn is the only one that I have unraveled a sweater so I can knit it again into a new sweater. I've always talked about doing that but it never actually seemed worthwhile until your sweater developed a hole.

I suspect that at least two of the colors I received in this box will become too special to knit. That no pattern will live up to the potential and it will be trophy yarn.

As we step into our new chapter I will always cherish you and wish you well, but I have to move on and do what is right for me. To have a chance to knit other yarns. This is good bye, Beaverslide. Keep your chin up. You're going to be just fine.

Baby It's Cold Outside

but it's even colder inside. 2 more days until Nov 1st and I can turn on the heat. I'm thinking of staying up until midnight on Sunday so I can turn the heat on right then.

Now having said that, my thermostat says it's 68F right now as I sit shivering in my long underwear and a sweater on over a wool vest. I normally heat to 62F. The first bit of cold always hits me hard and then I get used to it.

Then again, I'm so cold right now I don't believe my thermostat and I think I'm going to buy a thermometer to keep on my kitchen table so I can tell what the temp really is. I've said I'm going to do that for the last 10 years in my last 4 homes. It's probably me not the thermostat.

I still don't believe my thermostat.

Avoidance

While today is dark and looks cold it's really warm and nice. I knitted outside for a while just enjoying the day. I received my last mosquito bite of the season and picked 7 beautiful ripe tomatoes that I turned into a fresh tomato basil salad for lunch.

I finished the applied I-cord and picked my FLS back up again. There is no way I can face the thumbs of those mittens. I don't know why, no bad feeling wrapped up in that project, I just don't wanna. So I'm avoiding them by finishing other things. I only have 2 balls of yarn left and this sweater is done too. Then I'll avoid the mittens some more by washing dishes and maybe scrubbing the floor. Project avoidance is so productive.

Sureal

Today was one of those days when nothing goes smooth. I leave for work 5 min late, which is fine because I always get to work 10 min early so I can have some calming breaths at my desk before logging on. I make sure my water bottle is full. I put my knitting where I can look at it. I pull out my favorite pen and my To Do list is reviewed. Leaving 5 minutes late I can't fill my water bottle but the rest is still ok.

I'm driving to work watching traffic, thinking about but no longer listening to the radio, and starting to watch the clock when I notice that there are crazy amounts of flashing lights on an exit ramp. I watch the lights like I always do. I never get to see the wreck or what is going on because I can't get my attention away from the flashing. I actually have no idea how other people can. It wasn't until I had driven past that I even realized that was my exit.

Now I really am late and I get to my desk full of adrenaline and that starts out my day. No moment of calm. From there on out I only have interesting calls. Say that mildly, even coolly and that's how it's spoken of in the break room. Interesting actually means so very much more. I call my supervisor with so many questions I start to wonder if she cringes when she sees it's me. Is a car covered from rodent damage? What is the law on cross company discounts in MN?

Thankfully, I have a meeting at 3:00. I love meetings. It's a nice calm, sane, quiet part of the week. They feel important and I actually get to spend time with my team. Although I'm new enough I still don't know half their names. Sometimes we get stickers and balloons. Often there is candy.

Today is not a team meeting but more important or at least more random. It's about a new hoped for program that's been been talked about here and there since I started. I expect more of the same. I took my notebook and went prepared to spend a nice quiet 30 min learning about the company's long term goals. I love company goals meetings. They are less fun and whole lot more professional but I can be pretty sure nobody will expect me to contribute and I can just sit.

It is about the new program but not at all in the way I expected. The talked about hope is now real. I'm one of only 8 chosen to start. It's a possible promotion that requires weeks of intense training and then a passing a test. Heavy influence on possible there but I'm up for a promotion before I've even been there long enough to have any time in my PTO bank! That says something pretty nice about me, I think. It also means I finally have a grown up job. What is a grown up job? It's a job that I get to bring home with me and spend my nights and weekends working on it.

I normally wouldn't mention something so soon and so tenuous so early in case it comes crashing down but since it's going to affect the knitting...

It could go two ways

less knitting time and a whole lot more dysfunctional coping yarn buying
or
more knitting time and a whole lot more dysfunctional coping yarn buying

Wow...just, wow

Today, our computer systems were just limping along. They are never the fastest turtles in the pond but today was bad. Very bad. There was a day this summer they had the dignity to completely crash giving us nothing but a white screen. That was ok. The queue was short because it was an apology and moving onto the next person.

Today, the computer would chunk out the answers. So we would wait and wait, sometimes being able to process some times getting denied so it had to be started over again. All day the computers got slower, the wait in the queue got longer, the room got louder. I now know the weather in every state and the names of most of your dogs too and what you are having for dinner. About 8 pm I started dreaming of having PTO so that I could request tomorrow off, just in case. I opened up my PTO bank and would just look at it's emptiness. That emptiness is the most empty kind.

Tasty Treats

Today was someone's 4th birthday party.
I gave a box of alphabet beads. I'm surprised at how well they were received. We can spend some quiet time sorting colors and stringing words. I like quiet time. Lots and lots of quiet time. Mmmm quiet time and almond butter on caramel rice cakes. Nothing beats that combo.

I think I'll go make me one now.

Applying Myself

Today was a good one with a friend coming to visit, shoe shopping, and eating lunch at my favorite Indian Restaurant. Never mind the missing my exit on the way home, a lake between where I was and where I wanted to be, and finding out the (almost) hard way that my car has a 16 gallon tank rather than the 14 gallon I always thought.

I've picked my next project for Slogtober. It's my Noro birthday sweater. I'm applying the applied I-Cord. I read how to online and watched videos on YouTube. What a pain in the butt.

That is until I pulled out my books and found EZ's instructions in Knitting Workshop. It's brilliant, fantastic, and super easy. Using 2 double pointed needles and picking up the stitches as I go. I'm going to apply I-Cord to everything now.

Nevermind

I still love the coffee but things are back to what they were. Just 45 min after my last post I was wondering if I would even make it into work. This will be the last I mention of since I have little tolerance to people that go on and on about something but don't do anything about it and I'm not planning on doing anything, not now. I finally have health insurance again but I have an HSA plan. I think I'll really like it except it doesn't actually help me until the new year. So I won't do anything until the new year and knowing my aversion to doctors it would take worse than this to go even then.


Look! a bunny

A Little Love

I love the Internet. Just today I've expanded my vocabulary by looking up the meaning of cosplay, Sumatra, and pants used as an adjective. I've joined an Elann fan club. I check it before starting any project in the home. It's how I found out how to pull up, wash, and restreatch a carpet after water leaked into my basement. It's because of the Internet that I can knit the way I do.

I also love Sumatra Fair Trade Coffee. It maybe because of the dark roast* rather than being grown in Sumatra but my churning sickly stomach is all gone. poof! just like that. I've eaten so much since I ran out of my last batch of coffee and started this one that I'm sure I'm packing on the pounds. Food smells good again! It might not be the coffee but nothing at my job has changed for the better and nothing at home has changed either. Nothing much at least.

*A long time ago, when I was a bank teller, the Starbucks manager came in 3 times a day to make a deposit. I mentioned liking coffee but had problems with many of their drinks unless it was the frozen variety since the ice diluted it to a point I could handle. The manager said I should be drinking dark roast because...well, I don't remember the because but I think he said the dark roast has less acid in it.

Huge Mistake at Work

ok, ok maybe just a smallish but very irritating mistake.

Supervisor, not even my own direct supervisor, although I think perhaps a higher ranking one.. O, right the story... Ok... supervisor comes to me and asks of me and she qualifies it first with if I want to, and only if I want to, be sure to say no if I don't want to, no pressure at all, but would I please be willing to move shifts.

And what do I do? I agree to it! I'm an idiot and unable to say no if asked and I'm told I'm needed. I did say Saturdays are verboten and I can't change my Tuesday shift either but do as you please with the rest of them.

I'm not going to go and withdraw my permission but I will be sure and put my name in the next shift bid that comes around.

Autumn

I love fall. The weather is fantastic. The insects are thicker than ever but there is hope that they will die soon. Caramel is in season.
There are festivals every weekend from the first weekend in September to the last one in November.
And squirrels have started stealing the tomatoes so I don't have to deal with them anymore.

I love fall.

Classic

It’s raining a black rain on our tragic hero dressed in a ragged coat while his hat of thick thin hand dyed yarn has a hard worn distressed look to it even when new.

It’s a classic Dystopian story to be sure.

After all dystopian stories are so much more interesting than utopian ones. Matrix, Minority Report, Blade Runner, Fahrenheit 451, the list is longer than my arm. The only stories I could come up with that are even close to an Utopia is the Federation in Star Trek, Gattica, Pleasentville, Lost Horizons and we know how those turned out. Corruption from within, people living on the fringe, all trying to hold it together as it slips away because, really, what is interesting about an Utopia?

Utopia Cable Hat my dystopian version knit in Cascade Jewel a thick and thin hand dyed yarn. Everyone or Ravelry said it ran small or at least short. Since it's a Christmas gift for my brother and he’s a big guy I’ve done 4 repeats of the bottom cable. I think it turned out plenty big.
Look away from the cat hair. There is no cat hair in the photo.

Then I knit an Utopian version in Dream in Color, Classy. Another hand dyed yarn but it's smooth and crisp letting the cables pop. This one I knit to pattern. It is an odd length but I don't think too short. I'm not a fan of the top shaping and would do it different next time. It's also a Christmas gift.

Autumn Festival

Today was the Autumn festival that I vend at with my friends. 6 of us share 2 tents for a fun day of selling fiber arts. I also have soap and candles .

It was a fantastic day of mild weather and good friends and good food. Really good food. I started the day with a caramel coffee, my brunch was buffalo wings from the buffalo burger booth. Afternoon snack, a combination of smoked and candy roasted almonds washed down with fresh squeezed apple juice, followed by a dinner at Waldo Pizza. Yum.

It's actually sort of funny how I go on and on to my booth mates about how I just don't sell my knitting as I'm laying my knitting out with price tags on it. Like that makes me believable.

But what I mean is I don't knit to sell. However, I did knit 10 hats to go with my winter coat this year. So last night as I was rounding up my soap inventory and realized I pretty much have none I pulled out my basket of knits and priced them. I kept my 3 favorite hats (and all the hat's I knit in years past that I had worn) and priced the rest. Same with my mittens, cowls, and my huge stock of baby sweaters. I figured that if any sold that I would have a bit of yarn money.

Now to decide what to spend it on.

Second Chances

I knit on my lunch breaks at work. Usually socks because they are small, easy, and so very portable. I was knitting some of my very favorite Fleece Artist yarn into a lace patterned sock when I noticed the stripes on the bottom of the foot.
I love those stripes. I haven't bought much hand dyed sock yarn that does stripe. It took me knitting the whole foot to be sure about the stripes.
I was sure. I ripped them out and started over in a nice simple 7:1 rib.
The sun blew out the stripes on the photo but they are there.

I'll knit the pattern ones again, only in a solid colored yarn this time.

Headless Photoshoot

I always thought the headless photos that run rampant on knitting blogs and project pages was because knitters as a whole are shyer about posting photos of themselves online than other groups. I now know different. It's just so hard to get photographers that are willing to take endless knitting shots that we will use whomever we can get.

The next set of photos was taken by a 3 yr old. I adjusted the settings, put it on auto focus, wrapped him up well in the strap so the camera wouldn't drag on the ground, showed him the button, and reminded him not to touch the lens. That last one got me an eye roll. Everyone knows not to touch the lens, silly.

I told him I wanted photos of the vest. At that point he took over telling me where to stand, sit, and he took me at my word and took photos of the vest. Just the vest. He also took several of the other SSS10 photos and with each hat or cowl photo he took there had to be a pause to take another vest photo.

Bramblewood Vest knit in my favorite crazy big skein of Cascade Eco I didn't even use all of the one skein, the leftover ball of yarn is the size of a lemon. I cast on September first and finished 2 weeks later.

The pattern is fine but I struggled with sizing. With bulky yarn there is less room for error. At 4 stitches to the inch a few too many stitches and the thing turns out huge. I knew I wanted it big enough to go over shirts but not so big it was gappy. So while the knitting was quick and easy I was nervous about it the whole time. The sizing turned out ok with my fiddling with it.
However, like bulky weight vests often do, it flattens my bust and at the same time accentuates my muffin top.

I'll wear it anyway since the color is perfect with 5 of my work shirts. I'm nothing if not predictable in my wardrobe choices.

Mods: I left out the back cable so it would be flat sitting in an office chair all day. In doing that I used a fewer stitches on the back to make up for the loss of cable. I also moved the side shaping to back darts for a better fit.

The only vest photo with my face in it.

Cigarettes and Coffee

In college I had a friend spend a semester in France. When he came back and I was grilling him about what it was like, how was the food, and are they as thin as they say on the news?

The answers were the food on campus was ok but nobody ate at the cafeteria instead they lived off of cigarettes and coffee.

Then I asked, thinking of slender women, french clothes, lipstick every day, all tres chic, if they were prettier than American woman...

The answer was "They look like they live off of cigarettes and coffee"

And that's how I feel right now. Food doesn't sound good and worse it doesn't smell good.

I haven't been grocery shopping in weeks. I know I should go but the thought of going into a place so full of food is disturbing. Coffee does sound good. I crave it all.the.time but when I drink it my stomach starts churning and I'm pretty much done for the day. I've been living off of vegetables and plain rice because it's easy and nonthreatening? Nonirritating? Readily available at least. I've lost another 8lbs and add that to the weight I've been loosing since starting this job I now weigh the same I did in 1989.

I'm tired of feeling like death warmed over so I've been doing something about it. I've walked every day for the last 3 weeks. Not far, just around my building on all my breaks or downtown and back in the morning, maybe a mile tops. That hasn't been enough to help so this week I've made a point of cooking every day. Monday was a pork chop and that sat ok. Tuesday was pumpkin curry and that was iffy so today is turkey vegetable soup.

The glossy circular from the grocery store just came in the mail, and without the smell or the thought of crowded aisles, with food being shown as single photos it had a look to it that I could handle. I've started a list. I'm thinking about a trip this Friday.

Sockhead

September I knit 10 projects using 3788 yds of yarn. That is a crazy amount and I need to take the time to document it.

Labor day weekend I knit 2 hats. This is one of those times I look at my ample stash and I have No Yarn! I have over 40 balls of sock yarn on hand and not a single one was right for this project. Finally, I chose a ball that I have been saving for years to knit a pair of toe up knee high socks. Sorry, knee high socks. Maybe I'll find a different yarn to knit you in.
Sockhead Hat knit from a 100g ball of Opal yarn. It took 4 solid days to knit and my hands ached at the end. I knit in the car, I knit at a BBQ, I knit at work, I knit at home, I knit while watching TV, I knit outside. I knit and I knitted.
And after all that how could I not put in on the cat?

The hat took a lot of yarn but not the whole 100g skein. So with great hope I pulled out the yarn I had wanted to use in the first place, a single 50g skein of Jojoland Melody

And while I cast on for this hat on Sunday and bound off the last stitch on Monday 36 hours later (and how my hands ache after that) this hat wasn't the joy to knit of the other one. I actually knit it so fast since I knew if I set it down I would never pick it up again.

First, I am very tired of knitting this color. I look great wearing it but this is my 5th project this year and I'm bored of it. Second, the bounce of the Jojoland was hard to control. It lively and springy and kept jumping off the needles.
I modified the pattern for this one. I cast on 132 for the ribbing and increased on my first round of knits.

I ran out of yarn while doing the 4th round of decreases. I thought about ripping back and starting the decreases 4 rounds sooner. I just pulled the yarn through all the live stitches instead. It left a hole that I sewed shut with the last bit of tail.
It gives the hat a gathered top that I like.

Mondays

Hello, and how may I help you today?

I need my insurance card right away!

I can do that. Would you like me to fax it or email it to you?

Fax.

Ok then, what's you fax number?

I don't have a fax. Will you fax it strait to the police station?

And what is their fax number?

I don't know. Don't you have it?

!!!!?

How about I email it to you?

I don't have email and I need it Right Now! They are coming to arrest dear hubby for not having his license.

?!!!

Ok, I'm dropping on in the mail right now. It will go out tomorrow. Also, I can wait while you call the police station and find out their fax number.

I can't do that. They are closed.

Do you really need it tonight then? How about you go to someplace such as your grocery store or a Kinko's with a fax and I would be pleased to fax it to you.

I don't have a fax.

I'm sure you must have a friend with an email account. I can email your information. Or you can get one printed for you at any agent's office.

Ok, but aren't they closed right now?

I suspect they are. However, first thing tomorrow morning you can pick one up.

Ok, I guess I can do that. Which one is closest to my house?

???!??

Ok..... What is you're zip code? I have 3 pages of agents in your zip code. Where in that area is your home located?

Main St

I'm not showing any agents on Main. What about Walnut? Michigan? 45th? Can you at least tell me if you live in the North or South part of town? Lincoln? Monroe? Elm...

Monroe? Where's that? I don't know of a Monroe St.

Not Monroe then. Are you close to Elm?

I'm closer to Walnut than Elm

!!!!!!

Good! We have 3 agents on Walnut. Let me give you their addresses and phone numbers. We are open for 2 more hours so if you have any other problems please call back.

-----------------

I never have, but every time I want to ask how they had imagined getting the proof of insurance before they picked up the phone to call me. Maybe there is some mind ray teleportation device that I don't yet know about.

Try Again, Then Stop

I spent Friday thinking about my slog sweater and it just made me sad. So much has changed since I cast on. I’ve had my heart broken a few times, my life went down other paths than the one I was hoping for as I was knitting it. I pulled it out today. The yarn is gorgeous, the knitting well executed, the fit not that great, the memories sad. I’ve gotten rid of it. I’m keeping the two untouched balls of yarn for a pair of mittens but the sweater and knitting is gone. I cast on a new sweater to cleanse the pallet and will pick a different UFO to slog. Maybe my next oldest, Anemoi Mittens tossed aside for untidy decreases back in 2007

No Money Miracle Part II

I've been a bad swap blogger on this one. The photos have been sitting in my camera for almost a month. But that doesn't reflect on how much I love everything in this box. Love it!
A card, candy, and yarn. Already it's a perfect swap box. But wait! There's more.
A book, blank note cards, recipes, a knitted washcloth, pin cushion, a list of good books to read, a cat toy, beads and a tenny tinny crochet hook for beaded knitting (I can't wait), and finally a real silk sari. It's beautiful!
I'm supposed to tear it up and spin it, and I will. But Sumi-e loves it. He spends his days sleeping on it giving up his old spot in the sun. I suspect he is dreaming of when cats got real silk pillows and fresh food instead of a silk scraps and kibble.

Thank you!

Challenged Classics

It's coming to the end of Banned Book week which I didn't even know about until I read Needlefingers' blog. Because I love lists, I love crossing things off lists, and I especially love crossing things off book lists I'm stealing this right from her blog. The books I've read are in bold.


Banned and Challenged Classics, American Library Association (see more about banned books at http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm )

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
38. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
41. Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
52. Howards End by E. M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles (the second worst book forced on me in high school. I had to write a paper comparing it to the worst book Ordinary People by Judith Guest)
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

10 of those read so I could write lengthy papers, the other 18 I read just for fun or so I could say I did. Kim by Kipling I'm looking at you.

Another challenged classic, I'm skipping Socktober this year for Slogtober. A month or 3 dedicated to slogging through some hard knits that should just be finished already. My slog is my 3rd sweater ever. It went into the time out box back in 2004. It's time to pull it out and finish it.

The Power of 10

I knit 10 projects for Single Skein September 2010












This hat is the only project that took more than one ball of yarn. It took 4. That's 4 small balls held double.


I learned to knit 10 years ago. I was living in a new city and unemployed in that depressing stage of looking for work. I don't remember exactly why I chose to take a knitting class at the Yarn Barn. It could have been because I had already taken all their weaving classes, or because I thought the yarn I was spinning might be more suited to knitting than weaving. It was for sure because I was a bit jealous of all the socks being knit at the Weaving Guild meetings.

I don't remediable the exact reason but I do remember that the class was learning to knit felted mittens. By the end of the class I had finished 3 pairs of mittens, 2 hats, a pair of socks, and started on a lace shawl. In those 9 weeks I learned to knit on double points, find gauge and do the math to make hats or socks that fit, knit cables, turn a heel, and knit lace.

And while I may not remember why knitting in the beginning I do remember clearly the day that I started knitting more than weaving. It was 6 years ago. I had just spent 6 months spinning the yarn to weave these fine huck lace scarves. 6 months of spinning and I was done weaving over a 3 day weekend. That was anticlimactic and just took the wind out of my sails. Now I can spend a 3 day weekend spinning and have enough yarn to knit with for a month maybe two.

5 years ago I discovered yarn buying. Who knew? That has become it's very own entity.

My Knitting Fantasy Life

So I'm knitting right along for Single Skein September. I have so many photos on my camera that I'm avoiding them so it's not making it onto the blog. At least not yet.

Anyway, I have my queue all lined up. I can't wait to cast on my next hat as soon as this hat is finished. But then wait! Look at that shinny yarn in that basket. It's supposed to be a cowl. I'll knit that instead. Ok, good. I cast it on.

Then I read the EZ wool tights knit along and soon I'm remembering that winter is coming and I really want some wool yoga pants and have for years. I think about that for days and have the yarn and color picked out. It will be my next yarn purchase since I've just earned another.

This morning I pull down the book, read the pattern, love it and 'poof' the urge to knit it is gone like I had already finished knitting them. Now I want to use the yarn purchase for some super soft bulky Alpaca that I was eying at LYS. It would make a lush vest, I know just the one. I look at that yarn on Ravelry, look and look. Realize no matter how much I think it should only take 3 skeins most people need 5 of that alpaca. But it only takes one skein of Cascade Eco from my stash and now all I have to do is decide it I want it in my red or in my white. I'm planning on casting it on tonight. It is one skein and will fit right into SSS. I'm planning on casting on tonight but what will I think about it tonight?

My knitting fantasy life is in overdrive right now. It has no rhyme or reason and is actually becoming a little exsasuting. I've started reading on my lunch at work. I have to something to shut it off.

Gaenor

It's completely finished. After blocking I wove in the ends. I love it. I love the new smaller sized shawls that are worn as scarves. I wasn't sure about that look when it first came out but now I think it's super cute. Mostly because it's a chance to knit and wear a small project with a little bit of lace.
The knitting is easy and with the side to side construction it starts tiny and fast and gets bigger every row. The middle part is a bit of a slog but when I couldn't take it anymore I called it big enough and said that was the middle. From there on out each row is smaller and faster until it's just flying off the needles.
Also, with each row getting bigger or smaller they all have a different number of stitches. This keeps a hand dyed yarn from pooling.
Gaenor knit in Bearfoot colorway Ladyslipper. I've always admired Mountain Colors' and have a few skeins in my stash but this is the first time I've knit with it. I hadn't found a project worthy of it until now.

plink

I washed and blocked Gaenor and carefully pinned it out on my blocking mats. I stretched it so that the garter ridges ran parallel. Each point shaped and pinned. I admired it, stepped back, admired it some more, and then reshaped it. Finally I was satisfied and I walked away pleased with life and my knitting. Not long after I heard the softest plink noise and then another. plink plink

I look up from my computer to this. Sumi-e carefully pulling out each and every pin. I caught him in the act with a pin hanging from his mouth. There is no photo of the monster because my screech sent him scurrying not to be seen again.


He did drop the pin and none were eaten. No cats were harmed in this episode. Although, I did tell him he is this close to becoming the warmest fur mittens ever.

Here it is pinned out for a second time and not as carefully. Now it has to dry under a protective blanket.

Single Skein September

I'm joining Single Skein September this year. Single skeins are the single balls of yarn that are the impulse buys, or the sale yarn, or the super expensive yarn that only one ball can be justified. It is harder to find projects that use the single skeins so after a while they multiply and clog up the stash. SSS to the rescue. The goal is to knit as many single skein projects as possible. At the end yarn is given to the winners. Single skeins of yarn of course.

In preparation I finished the knitting on Gaenor, Silverbell, and Maile. All of them need the finishing done, blocking, buttons, whatever. But that leaves me ready to start September with all new projects. I'm starting with the Bramblewood vest out of a single skein of Cascade Eco wool.

Walking on Sunshine

Today was a very enjoyable day. I finally made it back to Tuesday Morning knitting and received a very very warm welcome. All day long people in the middle of a conversation would stop and exclaim "Cute Shoes!" I had a glowing 30 day review at work today and I apparently broke a customer service record last week, although it's not like they actually keep records to break.
Something else that I'm enjoying now. Knitting a baby sweater out of sock yarn while watching Dr Who. I'm completely smitten with both.

Globe Trotting

Thorpe the second is finished.

I also finished the socks I knit on my lunch breaks at work.I started a new pair of socks for knitting on my breaks. I love Fleece Artist yarn. Just looking at it makes me happy.

Last weekend was at the Ethnic Festival. I have a feeling that I'm not remembering it's real name. Ethnic Festival doesn't quite have the right, I don't know, the right PC ring to it.

Whatever the name the was food from around the world. I spent my day eating my way around the globe. I started in Pakistan with a mango drink and ended in Bolivia with Flan.
Passports...
...that needed stamping.
Plenty of music and dancing too. The tambourine dance to entertain the men working in the fields.
The scarf dance...
Picking mushroom dance...
Moon dance. I want bells to wear on my ankles too.
Fan dance...
This was a very photogenic dance but hard to actually get a good shot.
Butterfly dance...

I love how they had their hair braided into antenna.