Once more, for the new year

The good news is I am back.  Well & truly back on-line.  Our (minor) internet problems seem to be all resolve (not the reason I disappeared anyhow).  Our holidays are OVER, THANK GOD.  Despite every effort to make them no-effort-what-so-ever somehow they were a bit overwhelming.  Seriously, how can two adults, with no children & no plans be so damn busy for so many days?

Anyhow, as I dig out, pretty much the last thing I am dealing with is blogging & the first blogging thing I am dealing with is the upcoming quilt block swaps.  So starting tomorrow, as promised I will begin to roll out the next six months worth of swaps.  There is a not very surprising surprise for January, a holiday themed February, a Sara's choice for March (Sara's choice blocks are invariably the most popular-she is a better block picker than I am) & a real surprise for June-a real surprise because as of this moment I am not sure what it will be myself.

That's what's pending.  What has already happened:

I have broken my 15 minute mile cap.  It is now more like 14 minutes 45 seconds but whatever.  Also, I can maintain this average speed over two sets of 3+ miles each & a one minute walk in between.  Surprisingly I have gone done one clothing size.  Not even, almost as I am still wearing the petite size of the size I wore before, but we did do some clothing shopping over the break & I actually purchased pants that ARE a size smaller & with no spandex & no elastic waistbands.

I have started knitting again.  A lot.  In late October I did a two hours for two days program at the library on learning continental style knitting which was a bit too well attended.  I was fried after the first 15 minutes & last week a person I would swear I had never seen before in my life asked me when I was doing it again as she enjoyed it so much the first time.  Oy.  Maybe late April.  Since then though, I have the knitting bug again & have been making hats like a crazy person (more on that in a future post)

I am up-to-date with my bookclub reading.  People have gotten used to seeing me leaning against the car, speed reading through the current book while I wait for whatever I am waiting for but not this month! This month I am done & ready to discuss Mistress of the Art of Death.

Baby-quilt-a-palooza continues with nothing but baby girls as far as the eye can see.  I have gotten so bored with pink in all its many splendored shades that I am now making GRAY baby quilts with hot pink accents.  Also I have an idea that gray might hide the barf stains better.  Hopefully people have already started switching to boxers or whatever.  Seriously, the last baby boy I made a quilt for is in ?second? grade. 

& what hasn't happened:

My bathroom.  It is largely unchanged since these pictures.  Turns out my husband is VERY ALLERGIC to whatever it is that fills the air when we try to take down the old wallpaper.  In March he leaves for a week to go to a conference so I am waiting until then. 

Which brings us to now.  Mostly.  & starting tomorrow I am heading into the future.  The future of quilt block swapping, but whatever.  I am trying to break down the future into very small, bite-sized blog entries.

A second attempt at a simple red scarf

Earlier this year I got the bug to make a scarf for the Red Scarf Project.  Naturally, I did not follow the guidelines as far as dimensions went.  Fortunately, I also missed the deadline by roughly 11 months so I have had plenty of time to make another scarf the right way.  Plenty of time, but I still had not started by the first of this month.

Luckily, I have until the first week of December to begin, finish & get the whole thing off in the mail (to arrive by December 15).  So I am starting again.  I used my 30% off your total purchase to buy a few different kinds of red yarn (& by red I mean ever-so-loosely red; I certainly did not feel obliged to limit myself).  The Red Scarf Project site has links to several patterns (emphasizing reversible patterns, which is great), but I decided to revisit my own, but do it right this time.


Using the same yarn as in the old post pictures (but red, of course), I cast on 33 stitches to meet the 5-8 inches wide requirement; in the end it was 10.5 inches on the nose but honestly 8 inches looked so spindly.  Besides, I know it is going to get longer with use so it will move closer to the required width over time.  In the end, mine was around 52 inches long, but that made it long enough to wrap & tie, which was suggested.  The pattern remains:

Knit for seven (7) rows.

For the rest of the scarf, up to the last seven (7) rows -& I bet you can guess how those will go- repeat the following three rows:

Row 1:  Knit
Row 2: Knit five (5) , purl to the last 5 stitches, knit five (5)
Row 3: Knit

Continue until scarf is desired length.

I made mine so that it ended the opposite of the beginning (if the first three rows were knit on the same side, they were all purled on the same side at the end).  If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. Lastly, A tells me the fluffy yarn makes it a girls-only scarf; I hope he is wrong. Now that I have finished this one, my plan is to get another on the needles quickish; I figure if I knit instead of playing Angry Birds I will actually have a nice little pile to ship off.

Knit went wrong

As this is almost my first post of 2012, let me say happy new year & all that.  2011 ended pretty much the way they say the universe will end, things just kept getting faster & faster.  Then as our first act of 2012 we bought a brand new home heating/air conditioning unit; the old unit died  72 hours before the first hard freeze of the season.  If "bullet dodged" is the theme for the upcoming year, I can live with it.

It has taken a bit but we are now more or less where we were in mid-December in the house torn-up, chores to be done arena.  & as an extra the utility closet that housed the old & houses the new air pusher thing-y (& the hot water heater) has now been cleaned & re-organized, new shelves & that was a bear of a job.

Which means I can finally get back to my regularly scheduled time wasters, especially now that the problem of why-the-pictures-won't-upload-anymore appears also to be resolved.  Did I forget to mention that?  I want to say mid-December I suddenly could no longer upload photos from the computer that has the MyBook that has all the photos.  It is just as well I did not start loading photos to my laptop because right around the second week of January the hard drive died & a recovery was unlikely & then lo (or is it hark?) most of her came back to life.  In the end, my laptop had a screw loose (apparently, that is a real thing) & points of contact were not making contact & when the she was opened up (to harvest her organs errrrmmmmmmm hard drive) to bring what I could to the not-yet-purchased replacement, it was clear there was a screw loose.  Like I said 2012 is shaping up to be the Year of the Bullet Dodged.


I thought I would begin my new found & no doubt temporary return to a quiet life by doing a little more clearing...kinda.  Specifically, last year I failed (FAILED) to make a red scarf for the Foster Care to Success gift baskets.  I cannot send the completed scarf off until ?September? but I thought it would be good to get it on & off the needles, ready & waiting.

As it happens I have still failed because the scarf I made was too wide to be a scarf.  Also it is a little mohair-y which they frown on.  That wrong scarf went to C****** as I mentioned in an earlier post...I think.  Anyhow, it went so fast that I cast on another, finished it & shipped it off to my mom.

Cast on as many stitches as you think a scarf should be wide.  This will depend on your gauge using that yarn & whatever needles you find blah-blah-blah; I usually trust the yarn label for gauge/needle size & aim for nine inches or so wide (something went horribly wrong this time & I decided early on I didn't care).

Knit for seven (7) rows -- although I think the one in the picture was more like TEN rows

For the rest of the scarf, up to the last seven (7) rows -& I bet you can guess how those will go- repeat the following three rows:

Row 1:  Knit
Row 2: Knit five (5) , purl to the last 5 stitches, knit five (5) -- & again, the one in the picture was more like first&last SEVEN stitches
Row 3: Knit

Pay some attention at the end if you want the side that begins with an all-knit rib to end with an all knit rib.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.

I think it would be safe to say with adequate yarn in your carry-on you could start & finish this scarf on a flight to your holiday destination, so long as it included a stop-over &/or was a trans-Atlantic (or Pacific) flight. Or you could work on it during a Sunday marathon of House or Law&Order.  Or a few weekends of early season football.  What is adequate you ask?  I used six skeins of Sensations Angel Hair & made a very wide, plenty long rectangle & had most of the last skein left over.

They say the best scarves are not more than 10 inches shorter than the wearer.  I am 5'2" & I tend to prefer nothing longer than 4'6" & often shorter but you should decide for yourself.  This thing alas while a good length was almost double a workable-scarf width.  When folded over it is quite thick, too thick really to wear comfortably as a scarf.  You can avoid this problem by accurately reading the needle size & gauge printed right there on the yarn label, a skill that was apparently beyond me.

So what to do, what to do. As it happens, for the red one, C****** liked it that wide but she also liked the idea I came up with, which was to lay the scarf (for at that point it is still a scarf) & then fold one corner to the other edge, making a right triangle.  Then shoot maybe two inches worth of stitches in there to hold it, repeat at the other end & you have sort of kimono-looking shrug/shawl thing.  My mother called it a shroooooog (all 'o's after the 2nd one are mine).

It is really really reversible.  You can wear it inside out & upside down &, while fitting slightly differently (it all depends on how big your shoulders are really), it doesn't look wrong.  I think if you made it long enough, you could even throw a button in the front & maybe with an I-cord loop & have something a bit more formal.

Not even a whimper

So my laptop is still dead, the computer in the tvroom is still sketchy & you would think with all of this not-on-line time I would get so much more done but I think I am actually accomplishing less.  This year did not start with a bang.

I did manage to baste & quilt a quilt top from last year but then it sat & still sits unbound & unfinished.  The binding is stitched but not pressed.  I seem to be stalled an arm's length from the finish line.

I started a scarf for the Red Scarf Project, finished it too even though I had missed the collection deadline by about a week & a half & would of had to keep it safe & clean for another ten months except it turns out it was too wide & too hairy (they frown on mohair-y-ness because people say it ?itches?).  Not having a computer to check & treble check the guidelines was a problem.  In happier news, C****** liked it & took it home last week & the pattern I sort of doodled out is easier enough that I have already made another (not in red, not for the Red Scarf Project, but whatever).

I finished the February book club book Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin.  It went fast, didn't make much of an impression or so I thought until I found myself really wanting cake. Enough to bake one.

I missed another month of Block Lotto, tried again to drop out of the Quilt Block Swap & generally just kept my head above water chore&household-wise.

It seems in the absence of dumping my brain out onto a page I get rather clogged.  This week-end I think it might be laptop buying time.

Cold morning, warm feet

It was 52F in my house when I woke up a couple Friday's ago morning.  It was so cold outside (I think 27F is cold) that our heater had not been able to keep up.  I turned the heater off as it was blowing not-warm-enough air anyhow & am waiting for the sun to get that far & warm up the works.  Since I turned it off it got to 54F, which began to worry me.  & if you guessed the heat pump was dead, you would be almost right.  The good news is I have HVAC husbands & handyman boyfriends on almost-speed-dial (not my husband...or boyfriend, that guy tiptoed out after pushing little dogs under the covers to keep me warm) & later that same day I had a guy out dealing with it & around 10pm he came back a replaced the dead part. 

Anyone who cares to know (& I would certainly understand if you did not) knows that Fladidah has been having some cold, cold, cold weather.  It snowed here Christmas day, just flurries but still not the norm for 29degrees North.  This is roughly where Houston, Texas lies & just a shave north of Delhi, India.  Snow is hardly the norm.

But we are transplants here, directly from Houston but before that New England.  & before I was a quilter, I was a knitter.  & before handknit socks were all the rage, I knit them...out of worsted.

The short version is A cannot sleep if his feet are cold.  I know, weird right?  & he used to attend an annual conference in ski country, which was fine (he likes to ski & rarely gets the chance living in the USsouth with a non-skiing wife).  But at night, his feet were cold & the hotel had that weird discomfort=character thing that keeps me from traveling with him.

& so I made these, garden variety top-down socks, on US7 needles with the standard K1P1 rib.  I find it is easier to see the heel I am turning if it is in a different color, ditto the toe I am decreasing & just to make it look finished, I began with the first ?4? rows in that same contrasting color.

I know, I know it is hard to see the individual stitches.  This is not because the pictures are blurry so much as the socks have felted a bit over the last 18+ years.  Yes, you read that right, these socks were knit sometime before between 1991 & 1994.  It is true they get worn maybe three or four weeks a year & that's it, but for those weeks he might wear them almost every other day & that is plenty of washes & they have held up just fine. 

& that's it, that's all I've got.

Salvaged wood

I was wandering around a local yarn store (not the new one, the other one) & came across a wooden version of something I have seen before: a disk, open in the center with a stick of the same material. I have seen glass ones & fimo ones & probably even wooden ones before, but never this far south. They are used to hold two sides of a knitted garment (shawl or kimono or even a sweater) closed. The stick goes thru the layers of knit stitches & across the disk, holding everything in place. It took longer to describe than it would have to show you:


I have mislead you. This photo is NOT of the one I saw that day. This one was made by Caleb Burton a local woodworker-cabinetmaker person. The wood is African, left over I believe from a larger project. He made several of these for me out of different woods after I gave him a not-nearly-so-nice-as-his example.

Actually, I gave it to his wife, Michelle (who you can reach at michelle_treewater@yahoo.com if you want him to make them for you). These pins are sanded as smooth you can imagine (my skin is rougher, no kidding) & oiled, but not sealed at my request. I want time to make her mark on them as I use them.

The knit shawl in the photos was a gift from my mom; last week I was no longer just 43 years old.

Dead grandmother season begins

Let my start by saying my grandmother is actually quite ill. Last week she went into care after living with my aunt for all of my adult life. My grandmother was born in 1916 & was lucid (well, consistent anyway) for most of the time I have known her. That ended quite abruptly, recently.

This has put me in mind of that old college stand-by, the dead grandmother. Tonight is the first exam of the semester & the dead grandmothers will be coming out of the wood-work. A does not but I know of two in his department who do keep a running tally of dead grandmothers for every class they teach. Last time I heard the record for a single semester was 7 but the other prof objected that his 5 should stand on the grounds that he was teaching a much smaller class. That's right kids, some of your professors actually know each other.

I had a roommate who killed off three grandmothers in two semesters. Only one of her grandmothers was above ground before the carnage & the old lady survived it, I am glad to say. A** would have felt very bad had her one remaining grandparent actually kicked while she was killing off imaginary grandmothers.

Sometimes grandmothers actually do die, but lately it is siblings-in-combat. The professors have the same requirement for this as they do for dead grandmothers: documentation from an unimpeachable source. It is always very awful especially as no one ever fakes this one. The student explains why the exam will be/was missed, A grits his teeth & explains the make-up exam process, & a truly horrible event is made just a little bit worse. A is actually relaxed compared to some: he offers a cumulative make-up right around the time of the final (also a cumulative exam). If you miss two exams, that grade counts twice, three exams it counts three times, etc. It just is not possible to do custom make-ups for the 5% that might miss any given exam, even if their reasons are good ones (for you not-math-types 5% of 500 is 25. 25 times three exams plus one final is 100 custom exams per semester).

I admit I do rubberneck all the other reasons an exam was or will be missed: football (I understand the players, cheerleaders, marching band, but random students who did not even travel to the out-of-town game. Really?), fraternity/sorority formal, wedding (not the students own), other celebration of a personal nature, the babysitter was a no-show, car would not start, went to the room the exam was held in last time having no idea it might be somewhere else, etc. This brings us to my all-time favorite, the student who missed his exam because he was doing a religious fast, passed out & did not come to until after the exam was over. No it was not Ramadan or Yom Kippur or Lent. To this day, I am not clear what the kid's religion was.

Before you kill off your grandmother, let me give you some tips:

1-an excuse submitted BEFORE the exam is more credible than the one submitted after. It just is. This is a fine life lesson in general. Someday when you have a job where they pay you to show up, calling in sick in the morning will get you sympathy; calling in sick at the end of the day will get you fired.

2- be consistent. If for example you are missing this exam because of a religious holiday be certain that other holidays requiring your attendance at church or temple or mosque have also been observed. For example, you want to avoid being orthodox for your Engineering final but not-so-much for your Fine Arts final the previous year/same holiday. This just looks fishy. As a rule I would steer clear of this one (unless of course you really are that religious), because it does not work as an afterward reason (did you forget this so-important-holiday was coming up?) & letting prof know ahead of time means there is time to confirm your story. There are few things less fun than saying you cannot take an exam because you need to say rosaries for the Feast of the Ascension only to learn your TA will also be saying rosaries & now you really have to go to church or no one will ever believe you ever again.

3- consider the possibility your professor might not have wanted to be there either. I know a guy who has missed his wife's birthday every year but two for the entire 14 years of their marriage. It is my fault for being born during mid-terms but there you are. When you tell your professor you missed because you had something more fun to do, chances are pretty good he had something more fun as well. The only reason you are not killed-on-the-spot is that there were 400+ other students who DID show for the exam so your not being there did not change whether or not he had to be there. When you ask for the recommendation for grad school or an internship or whatever, though you can be sure this will come up.

There is a trend in higher education to view professors as service providers & students as customers & well, the customer is always right. I naturally come down on one side of this issue rather strongly, but that is not really relevant because with any luck no one will spend more than six years as the customer in this scenario. Then you will be the service provider for the rest of your days.

Employers frown on people who miss presentations because their 5th grandmother has died, they got too drunk at the football game to drive home or they are attending a special mass for Saint Blaze (not the patron saint of strippers, which would be interesting, but the patron of wool carders, so all you knitters out there get to your knees, today is your day) & did not think to mention it beforehand.

If all this sounds a bit brutal, you should know I used to be in the position of hiring newly graduated computer engineering students & nothing surprised them more than the expectation that work (& expense reports) needed to be handed in on time, that they would be at their desks by 9am (not strolling in with a cappuccino at 9:15), & finally that I would rather fire a second-time offender & hire someone new than explain why this would not cut it in the real world. I quickly learned that seeing the guy they cut class with get escorted out of the building by security guards for playing golf on my dime had a way of inspiring a work ethic in everyone else.

Making small change OR you can nickel & dime your way to better karma

I confess I did not watch the inauguration; I was too afraid I would be watching the man get gunned down. I have had trouble with live television news broadcasts since I turned on CNN one September morning to catch up while I ate my oatmeal & well you probably know where this is going. I spent the rest of that day taking messages for other consultants & helping the Village of Northbrook, IL get their fixed asset tracking system up & running. It was not an emergency exactly, but it made their day better & sure as hell beat watching the tv.

After the inauguration was over I called my mom (about something else entirely) & she said how much she missed Molly Ivins & wished she could read one more column. A agreed he would have loved to read that column, too. Other than that (& the red-carpetifying of the festivities) I have not thought much about Inauguration Day. I take that back, I did watch the piece about reswearing in of Obama on the BBC. Apparently, Edwards screwed up the oath & the White House was jumpy enough not to want take any chances.

Now is the return to normal life & thinking about making small changes. I do already volunteer a day or so a week. By volunteer I mean doing something that does not benefit either me or people just like me OR does make a tangible change for the better: spending 40+ hours chairing the workshop committee for a local quilt guild does not constitute volunteer work in my book, working one shift in a homeless shelter does. I have done both & the first just does not cut it in the karma department, at least not for me.

Still, I also know that it is not just about the hours. I am certain I am healthier when I am not just working eating, working, sleeping, eating working, eating, sleeping etc. There is something too much like the hamster on a wheel if I do not stop & take time to give someone else a boost.

So I have begun collecting the ways people have been trying to honor MLK Day & the new president & I am pleased that some of what began as niche one-shot thngs, have grown:

Knitters for Obama, looks will continue to grow; the group on Ravelry was founded in November 2007 & I am optimistic that this is not going to go away anytime soon.

Another has been around a long, long, long time: Project Linus. I have lost count of how many quilts I have made for charity. Even here, in our small corner of the world we have an active chapter.

Both of these & many other would be happy to accept your one-time project or your continued support or anything in between.

A big change would be to give all my earthly goods to the poor & go live with the homeless. I know this idea gets a lot of press (both of the positive & negative variety), but I prefer small change, myself. You can nickel & dime yourself to better karma. Get past your differences & check it out.

Knitting comes kicking

I put down my needles when we moved to Houston & have only made maybe a project every year or so since then. Suddenly, I want that feeling again. Last Monday, I went with C****** to the older of the two yarn shops in town (I love the new shop, but they only seem to have teaser skeins; one maybe two but never enough for a project) & bought the merino I have had my eyes on for a while. I still do not know what I want to make but the price is 40% of what it was & so I figured now or never.

C****** also got a skein of a gently variegated blue/green merino & plans to make herself a scarf in the feathers & fan pattern, or old shale or olde shael or whatever you wish to call it. This will be her first foray into lace, but I am confident she can do it. I looked for a link to this very old, very well known pattern but could only find people trying to sell it. So here it is:

row 1: knit
row 2: knit
row 3: knit
row 4: knit 1 /k2together x3, knit 1+yarn over 1 x6, k2together x3/ knit 1
row 5: knit
row 6: same as row 2
row 7: same as row 3
row 8: same as row 4
row 9: same as row 5
repeat until
4th from last row: same as row 4
3rd from last row: knit
2nd from last row: knit
last row: knit

You repeat the bit between the // however many times you want the pattern repeated. I recommend an odd number, say three or five or seven, but it is your call. You can see it is a toughie.

I am afraid I do not have a picture of my own but you could go here. Those of you who are very interested will notice some variation in her instructions & mine; I did not get the pattern here, but it is more or less what it will look like.

This October, Stitches (do not worry if you have never heard of it) will be in several places around the country, including Hartford. I am kinda-thinking I might kinda-wanna go. I mentioned this to A & he said "sure, whatever" so I am fairly certain he was not listening. Me & Mom went to the first one ever in King of Prussia, PA back when I lived in Joisey & she lived...where she does now.

Even today I am not sure I would have enjoyed it so much if it had not been for Nancy Bush. Mom wanted to take a Shetland Lace class & I went along for the ride. Nancy Bush was then better known as a writer/teacher in the more practical sock-world, but she was our instructor. She talked about being stuck in Unst (although she did not seem to see it as stuck) because of some confusion about the ferry & it was the most entertaining lecture I have been to since Jello Biafra spoke at UCONN & explained that the Reagan administration was really building StarWars so they could launch nuclear waste into outer space thereby polluting the galaxy & we should stop worrying about world peace & start worrying about littering.

So, knitting....I should probably see if the needles re-take & I am actually still knitting in say August before I make up my mind about Hartford in October. & if I am getting on a plane anyway, maybe I should skip CT & just go straight to Tunbridge.

Shine on, you crazy carbon

When we met, A was finishing up a PhD. I do not know much about his thesis. I do know about the equipment he used to do his research, at least I know what it was called: a diamond anvil cell. It was years before the diamond part of this registered.

Later, when we went shopping for my engagement ring, I began to have a clue. I had seen his electronics shopping technique. He rifled through the NY papers (we lived further north in those days), or the Bergen County Register to find advertised prices lower than was available at the Wiz, a Circuit City/Best Buy type warehouse that would not be beat price-wise (I swear the radio ads screamed "Nobody beats the Wiz") & would give you the difference +10% if you could find it lower elsewhere. As a rule, he made a profit on birthday & holiday gifts (which is how some family&friends have come to say "A beats the Wiz").

But our marathon march through the diamond district was like nothing I had been through before.

I had few but specific requirements in an engagement ring. I have small, strong, broad hands & a large ring would only emphasize their lack of elegance. Even when I still had an office job, I worked with my hands. The summer we shopped, I grew my first tomatoes on the balcony of our New Jersey apartment overlooking the parking lot. I knit for years before I ever met A. I needed a cut & setting that would not catch, or worse cut, long fragile fibers, & that would be easy to clean. I did not want a ring I could not wear while living my life. & for whatever reason, I wanted a diamond solitaire. Which diamond was immaterial to me.

A delivered. He tortured jewelers throughout NYC. They would turn to me for relief: what did the young lady want? Something sparkley. & not to have to think too much (this along with being able to spend the entire day in jammies remains my lifetime . Also I would like to keep as many of my teeth as possible). I was useless to them & happy to hand the whole decision off.

The following year, my mother & I attended a knitting conference & the story of my ring (& it's knitting friendly design) made the rounds. I learned how rare true happiness is with this particular piece of jewelry. My aunt had the stone from her ring made into a ring for her husband; it caught on everything, including her children's skin & spent most of it's life in a box in her dresser. At least two close friends have confided they actually dislike their engagement ring. One from day one but "there was no way I was giving it back" & the other after the stone fell out of fashion. I still love my ring, I still wear my ring (but not I admit when shoveling out the horse stalls).

This past spring I decided the time had come to acquire a pair of grown-up formal earrings. The traditional standby of gold knots had become too young & frankly too conservative for those few occasions when I do 'dress-up'. Diamonds again.

A looked himself & then brought me in for the final consult: I really am a pain the ass when it comes to this not-thinking thing. Also, I have the attention span a site hound, any motion out of the corner of my eye & I am OFF. I am delighted with the earring he bought me.

I will never ever have a chair at 'the big rock table', but this lucky chance of a diamond expert in the house means my little rocks are quality.