December 2005 Archives

So, what do you keep in your knitter's toolbox? What do you use for a box?
I have a great pencil box I bought at Staples a few years ago. It's got two red lids, one on top and one on the bottom, and is translucent in the middle. There are different sized spaces inside for all my tools. What do I keep inside? At a minimum:

• Ruler - For measuring swatches without cheating


• Tape Measure - Because I'm not flat


• Darning Needles - I started with just a plastic one, now I have the brass Chibi kind, and the silver Chibi Kind, which all have their uses.


• Crochet Hooks (size 1 and size F) - I usually knit on small yarns, so have small hooks for rescuing dropped stitches or fixing errors


• Burts Bees Hand Salve - Works great for taking care of hangnails or whatever catches your yarn


• Assorted stitch markers - You know I loves my stitch markers


• Calculator - I have to do lots of math to make things fit or just make things, so it comes in handy


• Stitch Holders - Those giant safety-pin kind, short and long


• Scissors


• Kacha-Kacha - I keep forgetting to use it! But I still keep it in the box for those row-number moments


• Plus an assortment of other doo-dads like those rubber stoppers for the ends of double points, and some double-points, and some waste yarn wrapped on a bobbin for emergencies. I also had some dental floss when I was working on a lace project, but I moved that to the medicine cabinet.

What tools do you find you use all the time?

New Cosmos on the Science Channel. Same Carl Sagan, but new images and animations. I think I'll go out to my bookshelves and find my copy of the book. And how cool is it that when I met my huz, he had his own copy of the Cosmos book, in French, that he had since he was a teenager too? My husband suspects that Hugo Weaving was imitating Carl Sagan when he played Mr. Smith in the Matrix movies. It sure works for me!

Share some of your favorite podcasts with me, mkay? Some of my latest finds are here, and the links are in the Bloglines list at the sidebar.
The Transmission - The best pocast about ABC's Lost. I love puzzles, and this show is a puzzle, and it's fun discovering how it all fits together.
Cast-On - A podcast for knitters
Celtic Music News - lots of great Celtic music
NPR: Most emailed stories - Since I listen to the podcasts in the car a lot, I miss some NPR stories, so this is the ones listeners liked the most from all the shows each day.
Hi My Name is Mark - I used to work with Mark Hoppus at the Wherehouse in San Diego, so it's fun to tune in and see what he's up to once in a while.

I didn't really like the most recent Harry Potter movie. I knew the story, so that's not it, I think it was the acting, maybe the director couldn't get them to work as well as the director of the third film. I think I like that one the best.

I just saw the 40 year-old Virgin, and found it quite hilarious. I had no expectations, and I think that helped. I did squeak out a few eyerolls and a few groans, but the man-o-lantern almost had me fall off the bed I was laughing so hard.

Is anyone else addicted to the Japanese game show "Cooking Showdown" or "Dotch Cooking Show"? I Tivo it every Saturday and we try to guess who will win and which side has food that we would be willing to try. We have figured out that the side that gets the second tasting usually wins. Tonight they had noodles made of potato and sweet potato flour, and tofu made from American soybeans and seawater. Sounds wierd, but I would have eaten either side's dish, they both looked yummy.

So, while I was waiting for my Kyoto pieces to block, I got distracted and started on a new project that is going to be for a new baby of a friend, to be born early next year. It's a new challenge for me, in intarsia, my own design, charted from a photo of a t-shirt I found on Google images. Said friend is a fan of a particular comic book hero, and not a common one, so it was fun coming up with the design. This way, father and son will have matching tees. I'll post pics after Dad gets the gift, sometime in January.

The point of the story is that I am using the same needles I knit my Kyoto on, and so now I am stuck. I measured the blocked pieces so I could cast on for the collar that wraps up the side, around the back,and down the other side, but then had no needle to cast on to. I guess I could have used another needle, but the gauge is right with the needle I started with, so I don't want to jinx it.

With the weather the way it's been the past few days, I am thinking my next project will be some fiber trends felted clogs. I bought the yarn and slipper bottoms at least a year ago, but it's going to be cold this winter and gas is more expensive, and the heat doesn't work in the master bedroom anyway, so I think slippers are the way to go. When I got up yesterday morning, it was 57F, in my bedroom. You Minnesotans can laugh all you want, but once you move to SoCal, the blood thins or something, and this feels cold! I did my time with the frosty nose-hair and the fingers too cold to bend when I was a kid, and I put up with the 405 for a reason, and that reason is beautiful weather all year. So I can complain if it's 57F in my bedroom even when the heat is on! Stop laughing.