November 2005 Archives

Wowee! What a cool book I just got from my secret pal! All the socks are designed to be worn with clogs or sandals, and that's just perfect for my Birki clog wearing self. Plus, all the socks are named for stars, so my space case self enjoyed that a lot too. Since I'm a Gemini, I'll have to knit Castor and Pollux first.

I love the idea of the replacable soles. She doesn't specify the yarns she uses, just that she knits at about 6 st/in on size 4. I wonder if that's sport or worsted weight? Probably worsted. I think I'll take a look at the KnitPicks catalog and pick out a bunch of colors to play with.

Thanks Secret Pal! I love it! I brought it to Stitch 'n Bitch tonight, and some of the other women loved it too!

I had a great time at my sister's house for Thanksgiving. She invited the huz and I to her new home in Palm Springs, a place I had never been before. Her house was lovely, and I have to say, I am a bit jealous of her beautiful white walls and large master bedroom.. you see, my house is 60 years old, and the walls are covered in panelling. Most of the walls, that is. One wall in the master bedroom, all the walls in the living/dining/kitchen. I am afraid to take down the panelling because I am afraid to know what's behind it. It could be plaster walls that are falling apart, it could be nothing (which would explain the cold). It could be satanic curses to all future occupants of the house. Who knows? So I leave up the panelling. I've thought of painting it, or hiring painters to do it, so it won't look like crap. But then I drift off into that if-I-won-the-lottery daydream of just gutting the whole thing and building a house that I want. Who am I kidding -- I a)never buy lottery tickets, and b) wouldn't be living here if I could build the house of my dreams. It would be out in the middle of nowhere where only the UPS man knows, and the cable guy for my internet access.

Anyway, my sister's house is beautiful, her table was beautiful, and we had a great time. Her Mom was there, with a guy friend, and her father-in-law was there too. I don't think I had seen him since the wedding or shortly after, at least 10 years ago. It was nice to see her (my sis) as hostess with her Mom as the guest. It's usually the other way around.

The day after Thanksgiving was the day of wax. My sister is in school to become an esthetician. She practiced on me on Friday, removing all the hair from my legs, and doing a great brow shaping with wax and tweezers. I have to say it wasn't any more painful having her rip all the hair out of my legs than it is when I pay for it at a spa, so I think she's going to do a great job when she gets her licence. Now, I am not one who usually shaves my legs, I just wax it off a few times a year, but I picked the wrong weekend to do it. It has been so cold the past few days and my skin isn't used to being so bare. It makes me extra cold not to have that layer of hair trapping in the warm air. I know, I'll get over it.

(For those of you keeping score at home, my sister isn't actually related to me, she's just my best friend since 1978, and I lived with her and her sisters and Mom for a while and I look at them as my family.)

But back to giving thanks... My huz and I have had some rough stuff to deal with this year, and we have come through it really well, even better than when we started, and for that I am really thankful this year.

I've been not paying attention again. Last Wednesday, just before Thanksgiving, I got a package from my Secret Pal. It contained lots of goodies, including a sleep mask (so I can finally toss the one I got from Air France last summer!) a wicked cool NASA meatball pin (am I that much of a space case? how cool!) and some goodies for my knitting tool box. And, a promise of something else being shipped from elsewhere. I am excited to see what it is!

My husband especially enjoyed the bubble wrap. :)

I was in Orlando this week for the Business Objects 2005 User Conference. It was muggy there. I learned a lot, and had a great time as usual, except for a few small problems. I'm guessing that Wilma is to blame for them though. The two last sessions I had were held in a room that had such a strong mold-smell that I thought my head would explode!

I saw my old boss, who is now working for Business Objects, and got a chance to thank him for the opportunity that he basically threw me into back in 1998. If he hadn't had more faith in me that I had (and sent me to a great client) my life would probably be a lot different than it is today.

The most fun part of the trip though, was the party, which took place at Universal Studios in Orlando. I rode both dragons on the Duelling Dragons coaster, and rode the Hulk roller coaster 4 times. The Spider-Man ride rocked! After scrambling my brain on the Hulk and having a few glasses of wine, I was ready to go, and started heading for the exit. I walked along the sidewalk sort of behind the crowd, in order to not bump into the people dancing and revelling. I walked by this guy and just happened to look up at his face... and it was a guy that I knew from my very first job back in NH in 1984, Tommy Oliver! (That's not his real name, but that's what I called him. He called me Rhonda Jo!) What a bizarre coincidence that he was working there as an event coordinator and I was there attending the event. And dammit, he looks just like he did when we were in high school, all tan and cute and with bright white teeth. I don't look much like I used to... I think he had to look at my name tag to recognize me. That was pretty amazing, and made a great party even better.

Naturally, I didn't take my camera, which I did bring to Florida, to the party. What a maroon!

I've been working on Kyoto for quite a while, because I had to rip out and reknit some of it as I mentioned earlier. I have finished the sleeves, which I did as my gauge swatch to make sure I really liked the new gauge before continuing on. Now I am working on the fronts, together on one needle.

I had to regauge this sweater, and resize it too, since I am bigger than the pattern size. But, it's quite an easy pattern to resize since it's drop shoulder and most of the pieces are square, but it still involved some math.

Here's what's great about the internet. I was reading GADGETS - STUPID STITCH MARKER TRICKS (string-or-nothing.blog-city.com) a few months ago and paid attention and sort of filed away the reference that Kim makes to a knitting abacus. I didn't really have a need for it ... yet ... but knew the idea would roll around in my brain and file itself away for later.

Well, later came last week when I was at Stitch 'n Bitch Long Beach and got out my calculator to figure out how to gradually whittle away 23 stitches from my front pieces, over 156 rows of knitting. Naturally, 156/23 = 6.7 stitches, not a good even number.

Since I only want to decrease on the public side of my knitting, I would have to have even numbers. The closest even numbers to 6.7 are 6 and 8. Using 6x+8y=156 and x+y=23, I came up with "Decrease 1 stitch every 8 rows 9 times and 1 stitch every 6 rows 14 times." (See kids, you do use some of that math you had to suffer through!)

To make it slope more evenly, I decided to alternate between the 8 and 6 row decreases til I get to the last five decreases which will happen a little faster (14-9=5). This brings me back to Kim's post about her knittng abacus. I knew that on each piece, I need to decrease 23 stitches, so I placed a marker after the 23rd stitch. Since I know that the last 5 decreases are different from the first 9, I put a marker 5 stitches out from the first - closer to the edge that's being decreased. Then I made the long chain of markers you see here. The first marker is pink, followed by seven greens, and 6 pinks, for a total of ... you guessed it ... 14. I start at the lone pink marker and do a decrease on that row. Each time I pass the marker chain, I pass the next link up onto my needle, inching closer to the solid pink end. When I change color to pink, I do another decrease. When I reach the end, I start back at the lone pink marker and do another decrease. When I reach the first marker that's in the knitting, I will know that I am done with the 8 row decreases and will remove the last 8 markers from the chain, leaving me with one pink and 5 green, and will continue til I reach the second marker in the knitting, at which point I will be done with the decreases. Whew!

If I hadn't come across her entries on the tricks she uses to avoid counting stitches (something I detest) I would have never thought of doing the decreases this way. It's been great so far, both fronts are decreasing evenly, and I haven't had to count anything since first placing the markers.

I just have to re-do that back piece and the collar, and then I'll be able to put this baby together. I've left the sleeves on stitch holders with the balls of yarn still attached because I am not quite sure where I want them to fall. Either longish so the hands can be slipped into the other sleeve, or short so the sleeves are out of the way. I stopped at the short sleeve point and will pin it all together and see if I like it, and if not, I will add a few more inches to the sleeves. Any opinions on the sleeve length?