I feel like I am 17 again. There was an exchange student from Spain visiting our small NH town that year, and he was known for being a bit of a prankster. So when Bernardo came to our classroom door and said “The Space Shuttle exploded!” we all laughed him off, even the teacher, who knew Christa McAuliffe from those statewide conferences that were held once in a while. Mr. Roy said, “Wait a minute” and left the classroom, apparently to find a TV. When he returned, he had tears in his eyes and told us that it was true. It was the first time I had ever seen a man cry, and it really made the news more real to see such emotion from a teacher. They are usually pretty unemotional in the classroom, just to keep things in control, but he lost control there for a minute.
I was working on my blog this morning, changing the templates and things when my husband brought up cnn.com and told me what he read. My first reaction was to laugh, because he is also quite a joker. I wen’t to google news to see what happened, and the Washington Post story was 5 hours old and didn’t mention anything. The most current link was from a newspaper in Pakistan. I guess because of the Israeli on board.
You wouldn’t know if from my blog, but I am a big fan of NASA, I dream of going to Mars. Well, maybe not me, but perhaps my kids or grandkids could be part of the first colonies. I hope that the kids I hope to have will be as interested in space exploration so I can make lots of trips to the Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park, or the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.
I am so sad today. I hate explosions.

Not that anyone would notice, but while I waited for those batteries to charge, I got busy putting together a new domain and blog using movable type! Now I need to work on the stylesheet so I don’t look like everyone else on the planet.

I hope there is a knitting meetup this month. Orange County seems a bit lame on the ‘getting together’ thing… Every time I inquire about some kind of get together, everyone begs off. And I know it’s not me, because even the first meeting gets blown off, so it can’t be my fault! I could understand it if someone actually met me and then didn’t want to come back, but hey!
I really want to meet some actual other real live knitters, so I can see if there is a better way to purl. I think I knit ECU, that’s with the yarn in the left hand, but not twisting stitches, right? Anyway, that’s what I do, and I end up with the yarn around my thumb when I purl and it gets tiring, unless I am purling a whole row or round, then I put the yarn around my neck like the Greek way and use whatever finger feels like moving to complete the stitches.
The only other knitter I know learned the same day as me so we both kinda don’t know exactly what we are doing, other than producing some nifty stuff.

On the knitlist, someone asked about Lion Brand Microspun. I made the hubby a hat of it, and it came out quite nice and soft, but did tend to split, so I had to look at what I was doing while knitting. I am pretty excited that I am doing well enough that I can usually not look and not mess things up too much, but for this yarn, ya need to look.
I actually bought a whole bunch of it to make an crocheted afgan (this was in Sept, before I learned to knit) and as I was making the swatch I kinda went “what the hell was she thinking”; she being Lily Chin, who authored this particular pattern. I had borrowed the book from the library and thought it looked really nice. I hated this yarn for crochet, so it went under the bed but I think I will use it for a sweater for myself some time, and will knit it instead. Since then, I have learned of the cult of lily.
In the Lion Brand catalog, there’s a kiddie sweater in red, orange and yellow that I would totally love to have in a grown-up size. Maybe once I finish the Thing I will have the skills to attempt it! I like my Land’s End cardi and will maybe use it as a model.
Can I mention one other thing? Of course I can. I can look out my window and see the Jo-Ann etc. a block across the street. They are open on Sunday, or Wednesday night, or whenever the need for something new stikes me. My nearest LYS is not. It’s a great shop, and I do go there once in a while, but not whenever the mood strikes me like I can with the really close Jo-Anne etc. (Although, there is a Wart-Mall even closer than Jo-Anne, I won’t step foot in there.) So that’s why I sometimes buy the Lion Brand stuff. Plus it’s good for experimenting, without blowing a lot of money. And Velona is too tempting, good thing it’s a trek to go there.

Back in October when I started all this, I decided that I was going to be adventurous, and try just about anything, and if it sucked I could frog it and move on. I started on a pair of socks, with dpn and I think I did ok! I like them, they fit, and as Connie says, they are jeans-friendly. Here they are:

So now, a few more sets of needles later, I have been mostly buying circulars because why not? They are just long dpn, with a place for stuff to hang out when it gets heavy. The only thing I don’t like about them is that they are kinda difficult to store, right now they are in a bucket from some peppermint patty-esque things that were sitting on Amy’s desk at work. Good reuse, yes, but a big tangled mess. I have a vision of some sort of contraption made of index cards that are folded and stacked and can hang on the wall by my bed where I do most of my knitting. I tend to buy my circulars in twos, so I can go all the way around something if needed.

I am working on a Baby Albert sweater #1 in Cotton-Ease from LB. This yarn is nicer than I thought it would be, and I love the colors, Blue Candy and Blueberry. I am making 2 sweaters for the twins because I hated the shawl that I was going to make for their mom. Not sure about the sizing though, it’s supposed to be for 0-3 (that is months, yeah? I don’t have any kids to ask) but it looks a lot bigger than that. I am a bit off gauge though, 21sts over 4 inches instead of 20/4, but the directions said get close. I didn’t think it would be that much larger. But that’s fine, most kids get bigger over time, not smaller. : /

Here’s the first one:

The second will be in the opposite colors. They are fraternal, so their gifts can be too. Kinda like my socks.

I decided to try the “You’re Putting Me On” socks, and somehow got all turned around and had a big mistake that I couldn’t figure out. Well, it turns out I didn’t quite make the transition from dpn to circulars, and ended up moving stitches to the wrong needle when it came time to start the heel extension.
I liked the idea of being able to not only try the socks on, but also to be able to work in a pattern from a chart and have it show up right-side up. I am not sure about the toes though, I wonder how hard it would be for me to unknit the toes and re-do them going down? I wonder if the change in direction will be noticeable while I am wearing them. Well, I might just try it after I do the cuffs, now that I got the heels all straightened out.

Yeah, I know it’s 2003, but who complains about free? Well, me, today. It doesn’t recognize my sound card, so I don’t know if I should go back to Windows 98 or buy a new sound card? Probably can’t to the latter, as this is one of those PCs that have the funky split-up motherboard and combines devices into each other, (sound card and modem in one). I have to think on this a bit more.

I have been working on my sock, a bit at a time, and got some graphics up of the things I made for Christmas gifts this year. Pretty good for someone who has only been knitting 3.5 months, I think.

I have all these ideas of what I want to work on next… I bought some yarn called LUCE from Fortissima di Colori (is that right?) and have only 10 balls, I am not sure it’s enough for a top, I am thinking the shapely tee from whiteliesdesigns.com maybe. I wonder if using another color with it would look good or just stripey? I may have to buy something and make a swatch to see how it looks mixed. Maybe some egyptian cotton in black, or a similar shade of pink will look nice.

I hated it, it was all wavy and not round at all. So I frogged the shawl and cast on some socks to console myself. I am not sure if I am going to find another pattern, just wing it, or what. I wound the used yarn into a big kinky center pull ball, and then realized that I don’t like that end and I will have to rewind it before actually trying to use it. And I don’t have a ballwinder, so ugh.

I have been working on a shawl that I intend to give as a gift as a nursing shawl for a colleague who had twins very prematurely. They reached 4 pounds just in time for the new year, and at 4.5 pounds, they get to leave the hospital. I hope to have it finished in time for a shower we will be having at work for her and the boys.
It’s amazing seeing how fast they are growing, considering how small they were. I am sure it’s awful hard for the parents who don’t see the progress hour by hour as they stand by watching over the babies, but for we who only see a picture every few weeks, it’s just amazing. Even full term newborns grow incredibly fast, but these little guys are getting so much stronger starting from so much further back.
So, I have to hurry because they will soon be big enough to breastfeed and I want to give her the shawl/blanket in time. I am using the EZ round shawl from the almanac, but in a dk weight acrylic so if the babies go bleahk on the thing, it can go right in the wash with the rest of the baby things. I hope she will like it.