Knitting block

First: I saw a knitted tag the other night! It was a green-and-blue tree scarf with white buttons, in Hyde Park on Woodlawn just north of 55th.

Next: I sadly missed the very summer very public KIP last week due to some work madness, and I'm so thrilled that Mary et al are giving me another chance! I can't wait to come along and see the yarn and the art. This time, I will keep my schedule better.

Finally: I'm having a little knitting block lately. I just want to knit, I don't want to think! But the Sooper Sekrit project is getting a little dicey, and my attempts at scarf design are requiring several re-knits. Add to that a weakening in my self-imposed yarn diet, some first wobbly steps towards planning for knitted Christmas presents, and a great deal of uncertainty about whether I'll have enough yarn for any of the projects I have in the pipe. I'm ready to take a break and work on some socks... but I don't have any socks going at the moment! Perhaps I'll rip back the Bad Sock tonight and begin that again. It's tough to work without a pattern.


Here's the scarf quandry at the moment: the top feather and fan pattern is the same lace that the wise ladies at My Sister's Knits swatched to lure me into the yarn. (For those that ask: Noro Aurora, color 4 lot A) The bottom swatch is a corruption of the "Glasgow Lace" sweater from the most recent Interweave Knits--"corrupted" because I looked at the sweater and loved the lace, but couldn't see that sweater shape looking good on me and couldn't stomach adding any more shaping in an allover lace pattern than was already present. I have two skeins of this stuff--another shopper at the yarn store swore that she made an entire Clapotis out of just four skeins. So it ought to be skinny, and I love the lace pattern from "Glasgow", but I also love the way the color works with the waves in the feather and fan pattern. I'm looking for something more original than the exact pattern I saw in the swatch, and I'm thinking that the colors may not look as impressive with a thinner scarf (and thus a wider color repeat). Your thoughts?


Doyle doesn't seem to care for one any more than the other. He just likes the birds.
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I'm beginning to like this Blogger Photo feature more, after giving up and finally making extensive use of the "preview" button. I mistrust it, though, because I can't tink the code to understand where it's going to put my picture on the page. It does save a step over Photobucket, and with the speed at which my computer is moving these days, that's pretty important.

FO and test photos

This is just a random image test with the blogger photo software. We'll have to see what it looks like when it goes up, but this may be so easy that I never use Photobucket again. This, by the way, is the shawl I worked on all through Scotland.


This is the border to a blanket I've been working on, and you might notice that the bound-off edge is kind of hideous. I was not sure how to fix it so that it's pretty, and I was REALLY invested in getting it off the needles, if only for a few days, so I ignored all the warning signs that said, "Danger! DANGER!" and now I need to rip and mend. Monica over at passionknit has some really nice ruffles goin' on for the blanket she recently finished. What do you think: would I have the patience for that?

Your last photo is a representation of the yarn haul from Loopy: amazing steals on yarn. Most of this will become part of the Sooper Sekrit Project, and the novelty yarn just jumped in to be pretty.

Verdict on blogger photo: easy to upload. Difficult to justify and format. Blinkin' impossible to tell which photo is who, though perhaps if I'd named them more thoughtfully than "SV20730" this wouldn't be such an issue. And I've almost got a cable-less upload system from the camera workin' now. Take heart, there will be more photos soon.

miles of eponge

Boy, do I need some photos to liven up this blog again.

What does one do with 27 skeins of Phil Eponge? Well, one kindly thanks the yarn shop providing some of the stash. One begins mad-scientist dye experiments to turn "bermudes" into the appropriate shade of chocolate. (I have no idea what I'm doing. Anyone have advice on this?) And in between finishing the dratsab shawl, the obligatory breeding present, and the totally stalled (but beautiful) pair of dragon socks, one begins casting on for the Sooper Sekrit Project.

Mwah-ha-ha. I shall bathe the world in cheery orange acrylic!

Curse you, mailman!

What do I get for rushing home from work today? Nothing. No Interweave Knits. No pics from C's cousin with the fantastic camera. Not even a decent stack of junk mail or credit card offers that I could triumphantly toss in the recycling. I got nothing. I'm not sure why I even bothered to come home between the "work-meeting-KIP" runaround that I've got going on tonight. It must have been in order to blog.

I am compelled to mention the strange nice thing that happened yesterday: I was going down the stairs into the Blue Line to finish going downtown, and a random young man in full faux-basketball attire and "I'm-up-to-no-good" attitude stops me on the third step. I turn around to say "No, sir" because I'm convinced he's going to ask me to help him buy his next beer, but he just holds out a transit card to me. What? I'm confused. "It's still good," he says, mumbly. "It's still good, you can use it." And I did; it was cashed out but it was still good for its third transfer. I have no idea why he felt compelled to share it, or why he chose me to give it to. But I got a free ride downtown, and now I think of him as quite a nice young man. Maybe his scowliness was towards the transit system, and this was his way of sticking it to the man. I wonder if I should have given it away--I'm not rich, but flush enough to buy my own train fare. I guess it's best not to overanalyze too much.

And on that note (ha!) I must leave for my meeting.

Twenty Questions

Okay, I’ve got one. (This is how you start a new game.)

Is it a sheep?*

No.

Is it a sheep byproduct?

No.
Well, okay. Miscellaneous, then.

Is it a place where we can buy knockoff purses, old books, and scary WWII items?

Not really. That's out in the fringe of Glasgow.

Is it edible?

No, and it's not in Fort William, either.

Does it live underwater?

Well, not intentionally.

Is it currently living?

Well, you'd have to ask it that.

Is it bigger than a breadbox?

Yes.

Is it something you like a lot?

Yes.

Is it strange and otherworldlike?

Delightfully so.

I give up.


Tardis, baby. TARDIS!


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*In C’s clan, this is how all games of twenty questions start. As in normal-people “twenty questions” games, everything falls into one of three categories: sheep, sheep byproducts, and miscellaneous.

Sample "twenty questions" answers from the trip: sheep, monkey puzzle tree, Loch Ness monster, Dolly the inflatable sheep, yarn, sheep poo, Chloe (our car's nav system), sheep, midges, Jaguar, oysters, sheep.

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Also, go check this out: 800-SUICIDE has been defunded by the U.S. Guvmint, and they want to replace it with a govmint-run hotline that would (of course) allow them to access the call records. I used to work on a hotline in the 800-SUICIDE network, and I'm furious. Not only that, but they've been stiffed quite a bit of money from a past year's grant. Go sign their petitions and write the congresscritters, would you please?

A girl's got needs

I WANT!!

contraceptive jewelry. Yep.

I PLAY!
Mimi speaks. And it's funny-haha, not funny-strange. So they say. Want to come out?

I AM GRUDGINGLY PLEASED
Plan B might finally be getting play. Ema helps explain why.