Whoohoo, I am done with the center of the shawl and now can start on the edge, which is knitted on sideways, I guess is the best way to describe it.
I am excited to see that the end is near. And, I am looking to the next project. I was going to do Elisabeth I, but since that is a little more complicated a design to resize, I am thinking I may do Maidenhair, from Alice Starmore’s Aran Knitting. I mentioned the swatch, and don’t like it, so am on a yarn quest. I may post to the KBTH crew for suggestions for up-sizing the yarn so I don’t have to do as much math. I get the straight lines ok, but get nervous with the curves. My sewing experience is limited to… you guessed it… straight lines, and I don’t really have anyone local to ask for advice on how stuff works.
I think I will do the BairIsle or Bearly Knits sweater first though, if I can McGuyver a swift. The yarn is a bit sticky for the ‘wrap it around your knees’ method, even if it would fit. I balled up the Cascade using my feet part of the way, but even that got a bit tangly. I can’t imagine my LYS would let me bring in a bunch of yarn to wind, even if I paid for the use of the machine, she doesn’t seem like she would go for such a thing.

I got bored of the shawl and so needed a distraction, and started on a pair of Wendy’s Toe Up socks.

A great, easy pattern that looks real sharp when done. I have finished the first sock and just finished the toe of the second one, and will probably use this pattern again if they feel good on my tootsies.
I used Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, in Purple Club. I really like the colors in this yarn, and didn’t have a sock in mind for it when I bought it. I had thought about doing Achim’s Sock, from the Knitting Curmudgeon’s blog, but since that ended badly, I didn’t want to walk around with socks named after a guy that disappeared because maybe I will lose the socks!
So, I decided to just give Wendy’s sock a try, with a simple 4×4 rib. I really hate all that switching back and forth from knit to purl, but do need the practice, so I decided to tough it out.
Speaking of switching from k to p, I started a Moss Stitch swatch in Cascade 220, to see if I can get a slightly larger than gauge swatch for Maidenhair. I really need a new cardigan because my favorite Land’s End one is on it’s last legs. I think I will do this as my next project, after the shawl is finished, which should be done by Halloween if my progress lately is to be believed.
But, I really need to work on my technique for k/p switching in a single row, because it makes my upper arms ache. I have been trying to purl from the front (going forward, I already do it all the time going backward and love it) but I can’t really get it going as well as I like. I may just throw in some rows of purls in the swatch so I can practice, I can tell I am way off gauge with this yarn anyway, so I may just do that instead of wasting the swatch.

Ok and now I have a mishmash of Jesus Christ Superstar and the Buffy musical “Once More With Feeling” going on in my head. Those who get it will get it.
Today we had scheduled the installation of our Tivo/DirecTV receiver for the early morning slot, 8-12. So we got up before the sun and drove the 45 min to our house to be there in time for the installer to arrive at 8. You know what’s coming next…. He showed up at 11:50.
Worst of all, he didn’t seem to be planning to do any work! He kept hemming and hawing and sighing like it wasn’t his job to get a little dirty!. Then he wanted to drill a hole in my bedroom ceiling instead of putting on his jumpsuit and going into the crawlspace. By this time I was getting pretty annoyed, it’s not like it was the mailman I was asking to go down there, it’s the guy’s job to run cables and get under the house.
Then he wanted to drill a hole in my living room floor. I conceded, as long as it was close to the wall, but then he broke his drill bit, and wanted to drill farther from the wall. Finally I suggested drilling through to the closet behind the wall and drilling through the floor of the closet instead. He seemed happier to do this, thank gord.
So, by 2:30 he was finally done and we now can pause episodes of Angel or whatever we like. Angel was on when I started playing with the box. Now to actually move in and stuff.

I have made it past the point where I frogged, so I really feel like I am making progress on the shawl. Everyone who sees it thinks I am being overly ambitious for my first real project, but I feel I am under control. They don’t see the mistakes that I just sort of leave there and fix in the next round.

Here it is, in all it’s purple glory. I can’t tell how this photo came out, because my monitor gets darker everyday. After the house is all settled, it’s time for a new monitor for me. Please don’t look at all the crap in the background — the office is in pre-packing mode– everything’s everywhere.
I am in the middle of the second pattern, just starting the second part of the second pattern. I hope I can finish this before we move. At the rate we are going, I don’t know which will happen first.

We are still trying to get our house ready to move in, and it’s taking forever. As soon as you get one thing fixed, something else wrong happens, and you get pushed back again. Ah well.

We had another successful meetup last night. I brought along my shawl and knitted about 1 round on it. I was so tired from the day I had.
My husband just became a citizen yesterday, and the Naturalization Oath Ceremony was at the Pomona fairgrounds. It was hot. And stuffy, and I got blisters on my tootsies from the walk back and forth to the car. So by the time I got to the meetup, I was tired (and late) and so didn’t knit very much. But I will have some carpool time today to work on it a bit more. Over 6000 people were sworn in yesterday, in two ceremonies. I am really proud of you all, I am sure it’s a scary and exciting thing to renounce the country of your birth for another.
I have put the swank on hold. On the shawl, I have been making real progress (other than yesterday) and so I don’t want to lose my momentum and work on somehting else. I will return to it soon, I am sure. I also made some mousies that I need to send in to Wendy, but I haven’t yet. I might make some more, so I have been holding on to the package.
This weekend looks to be another of the pulling up the strips of wood that surround the edges of the room to hold the carpet down. I am sure there is a name for those, I just don’t know it. The genius that installed the carpet apparently didn’t trust the nails that were already in the wood strips and are nice and short and come out easily when pulled. No, they used some really long nails, in addition to the pre-nailed nails, so it’s been slow going in some parts. Others are just speedy, it’s those darn long nails that are too close to the short ones so the tool can’t get around either one unless I pulverize the wood. Then, it’s time to take down the ceiling.
Here’s a pic of the carpet up, but the wood stippies still down. We are going to have to sand the crap out of this floor to make it all nice, but I think it will be worth it. I took this photo with my Palm.

Driving home from spending an exhausting day in our very HOT new house, ripping up carpet, staples and the thingies around the edge of the room. Slow moving traffic, as one doesn’t get a break on the 405, even on a Saturday. Rear-ended. Driver of the other car was excited about my Dean bumper sticker and was trying to get close to read (the url, I guess?) it and hit me.
I think the little adrenaline surge and the shakes I got from the accident helped me to not be as sore as I thought I would be after spending the day on my hands and knees pulling out nails. This floor better look amazing when it’s done, for all the work we are going to have to put into it.

Ugh. I am having a really hard time with the Wrap & Turn portion of our program. I am glad I am doing though, because this is a technique I would like to master before making the lovely Shapely Tee that I keep thinking will come next if I can ever finish the shawl and the swank. And I have only done swatch one of the TKGA Level I. The swank is sort of an alternate masters program though, so I don’t feel like I am wasting my time. When it’s done though, I may have a different opinion, since I haven’t a clue what it will be.
But back to the short rows. Reverse stockinette is ugly anyways without my crazy extra loops poking out. I am hoping by the time I get around the piece, I will have it down, just in time to graft the slices closed.

Tonight, I volunteered to help out at the Dean in 2004 Meetup in my county. Another guy came and sat next to me and we chatted a bit, and it turns out that he is new to the area, and said he had just arrived from Boston. I told him I had lived there, and he knew the name of my (small!) school, and where it was, etc. I thought, “that’s nice, so many people have never heard of Wentworth“. So we chat all night between getting new folks signed up on the mailing list, (50 new people tonight, way cool!) and just as he is leaving, I ask him where he lived back east. Turns out, he not only lived in the town I grew up in, but is best friends with the sister of my high school best friend. How wierd is that?
But wait, there’s more…. After he leaves, a man approaches the table to hand in his letters (we wrote letters to undecided NH voters) and he is wearing two name tags. One is a Hello my name is tag with a goofy name on it, and the other is a Merril Lynch name tag with a first and last name on it. The name is so familiar, so I start asking him questions, like, “is that your real name?”, “Why do I know your name?” He replies, “do you have money?” I don’t have that kind of money, so I keep going… turns out, he was a customer of mine at a small software company in San Diego where I used to do phone support, at a most miserable, underpaid, horrible time in my career. When I asked him if he used the software, his eyes got huge, “Your adhohr! Wow, you look so nice, you were such a bitch on the phone!” Well, I was, you know. That’s why I don’t do that anymore.

Here it is, my first self-portrait with my new Zire. Pretty good considering it’s taken by the light of my monitor in a pretty dark room.

OK, now I need to find that silly song. Lene Lovich, right? It will be in my head for a month now, like the theme song to The Prisoner has been for the past week. Hmmmm, she used to be on the record label owned by my employer.. I wonder if there is one of those ’80s cd’s with that song on it at the company store? Or was that Nina Hagen on that label… Either way, I will probably find them on a Rhino compilation before the original label re-issues them.
If I still had a turntable I could dig the vinyl out of the closet, I am sure I have it on vinyl. When I move to the house, I shall have a wall of vinyl, or at least a shelf of vinyl. I have about 1000 records and maybe I wan’t a turntable for Christmas.
OK, I am such the 80’s child.