Knitting of course!
I thought I’d get my xmas knitting done early and get started while on the plane or whilst being the passenger as we drove around New England and Canada, and I did get quite a bit done.
There’s a back:


And some fronts:


And some … oops again! I knit the sleeves together on one needle from the same ball of yarn and naturally, I ran out just before beginning the decreases. See how they are joined there in the middle? Yeah.


I thought I was being so clever, I had a pattern, from Debbie Bliss, who never provides a schematic (which is very annoying, by the way) and some yarn at a completely different gauge.
So I printed some knitters graph paper using the extremely useful page at The ABCs of Knitting. Scroll down the left side menu to Actual Size Graph Paper, and it will allow you to generate PDF files of whatever gauge you need. I love this site and will be so bummed if it ever goes away! Anyway, I made a sheet of the pattern’s gauge, and one for the gauge I got from my swatch. I then followed the pattern and drew out the size I wanted on the pattern gauge page (this is a baby sweater, not adult, so it didn’t take too long). Now, using this drawing, I was able to transfer to the gauge I will be using, and have the measurements at the critical parts of the pattern.
See? But what my pattern didn’t tell me was how much yarn I would need, and I somehow blanked that idea right out of my mind before going on my trip and only brought the one skein of yarn that I had in this color. None of my LYS have it either. I don’t even know where I got it. So, I will be starting over in a blue color instead, of which I have two skeins. I’m glad I actually like the knitting part of knitting, not just the end products.


BTW, whenever there is a thumbnail in my pages, you can click for a larger photo. I never did figure out how to make nice frames around my photos that make it look like they are click-able.
So, while I was waiting for the yarn fairy, I started on the other xmas gift, which is this little cutie:


Do you see it? It’s an Ernie sweater! Although I will be trying a few things to get the sleeves right when I get to them, see how they are along the length of the sleeve instead of around? Anyway, I think it’s cute, and hope the recipient will like it, or at least his mom will like it.

And now time for a rant

Frakking TSA!! I bought brand new locks for our trip, with the special TSA approved locks so that they can use a key to open our bags and rummage to their hearts delight, and the assholes didn’t bother to open the locks, they just broke the zipper on a $600 TUMI suitcase instead. And they left a nice note saying basically, “fuck you” to add insult to injury. And then they did it again on the trip home. And that’s $600 1990 dollars, so to buy a new one, looking at the TUMI website, is about $1000. This bag has been back and forth to France several times, all across the country when my huz was travelling internationally and in the US on business, and never had a scratch on it. I blame those paranoid NYC assholes. I’ll bet, since we went through JFK, that they did it there. And on my bag, they broke the lock, even though it has a keyhole that THEY REQUIRE, but they just decided not to use!! And on my bag, they didn’t even leave a note. How nice, I feel so safe now.
And if I complain, who knows, maybe I’ll become one of the disappeared, a new status of citizen made legal last week by our beloved leader.
And on a less serious note, Jeffrey?? WTF??? I caught the last two eps of Project Runway on the plane, and thought Uli got robbed. I mean, Laura’s clothes were nice and wearable, but she was a bit of a sore loser, so she didn’t deserve to win, but Uli actually made clothes that women would wear. I mean, do you ever see women dressed in Betsey Johnson’s clothes? Jefferey is bad Betsey Johnson meets bad 80’s SoCal punk (which was already over when it started). I’ve never seen such irrelevant clothing. Whatever!