Oh by the way ....

Forgot to show this teaser. This was not an accident:



Rather, I finally got to acting on a plan that's been formulating since Sprout! the zippy kitty shredded our lovely batik duvet cover some years back. She didn't mean to, she just likes doing cat-acrobatics on the bed, and she digs in for traction. The duvet batik, a bit flimsy for all its loveliness, is being re-incorporated along with a bucketful of gradually accumulated fat-quarters into a new quilt.

Given that the "lap" size quilt took over 3 years, don't hold your breath, this might be all we see of it for a while. Who knows.

... then my car must've broke down by a yarn store. Ooops.

To take the edge of the disappointment of mis-calculating Sunset Sock v.2.0, I bundled Mom into the Echo and we went to check out Spun, a new-ish yarn store that has popped up in Burlington near Mom'n'Dad's place. Actually, it's in an interesting corner of a suburban strip-mall type place. There's Spun, a sewing store, and a dance store all in one corner, one next to the other. All my hobbies in about 30 feet of storefront, wow.

Spun was neat. Cozy and friendly, and the nice sales assistant was helpful with some sock engineering discussions, and happy to help us rootle every basket in the shop. Vaguely hoping Mom might find something to interest her in crochet again, I nonetheless figured we would at least find a yarn she liked for her next socks (once I figure out the design) and she's mentioned a couple times she wanted a neat winter hat. We found both:


It might be a bit hard to see, but we got some self-striping Regia Cotton yarn in a denimy-blue scheme, and we found a Sweaterkits silk-alpaca hat kit, in a purple, which Mom has started liking. The hat will be quick to whip up for her, as I made one already and have done all the frogging and gauge fiddling before. The picture of my black one is over in the Gallery, click left and look up the Sockumentary.

Then, this was the next accident, of the variety that Yarn Harlot has described as "I fell over in a yarn store and may have swiped my credit card on the way down".

Guess what?:



Oh yeah, right you are:



I had found it. The elusive Fleece Artist Thrummed Moebius, by Cat Bordhi. Spun had two, a brown-on-brown-on-brown one, and this one, with a joyous muddle of black, purple, green, yellow... I likes it, I do. I am going to require myself to finish Stormwater and several socks first, but this new pet is in a place of honour on the top of the luxe yarn stash bin.

My friend Alison has this theory, that if you can't find something you own, like your hammer or one of the 23 screwdrivers you have, you should buy another. The new one by its very presence will attract the other one(s) back. She says this is why she had 3 identical hammers in her student apartment. I am wondering if there is a related concept for yarn, as I had essentially given up on the thrummed moebius kit and gone with the Stormwater, only to find one not a week later. Maybe the Fleece Artist was jealous of Handmaiden getting all the attention.

I think, for now, I am done with string-related accidents. I will therefore, while not depriving myself (because starvation diets don't work either), work to stick to an orderly plan when it comes to string for a while (kinda like attempting a healthy meal plan!).

There are presently two socks and Stormwater on the sticks now.

There is Chapter 2 of the BMFA Rockin' Sock Club which should ship this month, and chapter 1 of a local home-grown sock club on its way soon.

There is my trip to Toronto for the Yoga Show, during which I may visit Lettuce Knit but will do so with a reasonable budget in mind. (I CAN actually do that, believe it or not, partly because well-stocked yarn stores can be so overwhelming I am paralyzed).

There is Blue Moon's 10% coupon which I WILL use, but not until I have earned it by finishing sock kit #2, as well as the next assignment of what I really SHOULD be doing instead of knitting, blogging, and losing track of my debit card in yarn stores:




*sigh*. Logging off now to hit the code.

...... then there was the experimental design accident....

Since it's been seen by it's eventual owner, I can now introduce you to the new Sunset Sock v.2.0:



and promptly tell you that it has now met its demise and is a ball of string again. That was painful, this yarn is so fine it was about 1000 st/inch of sock! But, it wasn't going to work. Sunset Sock v.2.0 is my attempt to work out a diabetic-appropriate sock for Mom and her touchy feet and ankles. I am incorporating wool/cotton/elastic yarn, really stretchy ribbing on the top of the foot and around the leg, an increase at the ankle for swollen ankles, and a garter stitch sole to make it cushy.

However, the mix of garter st. rib on the bottom and vertical k3 p1 rib on the instep made the top and bottom two different lengths essentially, and put rumples and wrinkles in the sock at the top of the instep. Not good when trying to avoid pressure points. The good news was the stretchy ribbing and the increased diameter on the leg DID work. So I'm keeping my proportions but adding a bit more engineering around the transition from instep to ankle into the next attempt, we'll see.

Final installment to come...

It all started with a quilting accident....

I have long come to grips with the fact that I'm a bit of a yo-yo when it comes to creative pursuits. Interests come and go, and I sometimes find myself with say, a bucketful of paint brushes and some fabric dyes I may not use again (it was supplies for a workshop, and the workshop WAS rather a hoot). I'm OK with that. A bit of luck and a lot of hard work in the last several years of my life did land me in a position where some experimentation with a textile habit won't interfere with the mortgage.

So last week my slightly longer-standing textile habit, quilting, was back at the forefront when, in a fit of head-cold-induced restlessness, the Spousal Euphemism and I drove over to visit my old town, Guelph, and pop in to Greenwood Quiltery. The point of that trip was to pick up the latest (and last, I found) installments of my Swatch Club. Greenwood has recently added a "for Knitters Too!" by-line, and is one of a few stores in the region that carries the lovely, Canadian luxury yarn lines of Fleece Artist and their offspring, Handmaiden Canada Fine Yarns. My Fleece Artist encounters so far have been with their basic Merino sock hanks, the first of which turned into socks yesterday that promptly ran away to live with my sister (picture coming. I really liked that forest green!). I have seen many other lovely yummy Fleece Artist and Handmaiden kits, but since I wasn't into shawls and scarves or a "Maid Marion" vest, I have reverently squished and petted them in stores, but refrained. I DID become very, very intrigued with one of their kits I had seen on-line - a Thrummed Moebius by Cat Bordhi. I've wanted to learn to do Cat's Moebius trick since I read about it - it's the perfect thing for a mathematically-oriented artsy, and if I were to wear a shawl, it would be something geeky involving the word "moebius" I'm sure. Alas, though, at every Fleece Artist dealer I've been to they either have never had that kit, or sold out, or doesn't know about it at all or if they can get it ... so I remained without any Fleece Artist ambitions besides the socks.

Last Easter Saturday at Greenwood, though, I came across the Handmaiden Stormwater Shawl kit. Now I had seen this kit before, often in bright/light pastels. The pattern looked intriguing. If I were to knit a shawl OTHER than a moebius maybe it would be something like that, the pattern is a sort of tesselating wave look (being an engineer by education, I seem to be one of few knitters/quilters who IS enthusiastic about the math concepts behind the designs). The yarn for this kit, called SeaSilk, is lovely. But I wasn't into shawls, and the colours I'd seen hadn't grabbed me - until this one at Greenwood. It is a charcoal black-grey and brown variegated, but because of the sheen of the yarn, the charcoal gray looks like a dark pewter, and the brown, a bronze-copper tone. I was quite intrigued. I petted it a bit, squished it - and talked myself out of it, paid for my swatches and two fat quarters, and left the seasilk in its display basket.

So here's the quilting accident part - I arrived home to a message from Greenwood advising that they made a mistake at the cash, and owed me money back. I hadn't even noticed - I guess I'm used to accidentally spending more than I thought when it comes to fabric. And I did have a head cold, which means my IQ was covered in snot and hence lower than usual. Greenwood was closed by the time we got home, so I would have to call them back about the refund on Monday.

That night, I dreamed about the pewter-copper seasilk and the Stormwater pattern. I woke up pondering it the next day. I wondered if it would still be at the store the next time I went. I often talk myself out of purchases to find I never give them another thought or if I do, that thought is that yeah, I really didn't like that anyway. So when I DO start wondering "did I really want that after all?" the answer is often (though not always) yes.

On Monday I phoned Greenwood about the refund, and they said they would pay me back but I'd have to come in with my debit card. They also offered of course store credit if I preferred (also requiring me to visit again). We concluded that since I was a somewhat regular visitor, I didn't need to rush back with my card and they would keep a credit note on file for next time I was in. I thought about the Stormwater kit, and dismissed it without saying anything, thinking that I'd get back there in a week or so and maybe think again *if* it was still there, and if it had gone in the meantime, so the Fates would have meant it to be.

An hour later I called back and asked if they would hold the kit with my credit note. I said at the latest, I'd come back this Saturday, or maybe on a lunch hour late in the week if I could get away. I couldn't get away that exact day, as I had an hour-and-a-half conference call booked with a customer over my lunch.

An hour after that again, my customer had called to cancel. I get "flex time" at work - so long as my 8 hours gets put in and the required work is done - I can take a long lunch and work until 6. I concluded at that point that the accidental overcharge, required re-visit for my refund/credit, the fact that I actually DREAMED about the shawl, and my cooperative customer were all telling me I did indeed want that *particular* Stormwater shawl.

So this:



...is indeed cozied up on the corner of my desk. I've started and pulled it out twice, as SILLY ME - it's lace and therefore has those "yarnover" thingies that caused the Alligator socks to kick my butt three tries out of four. However, I'm reformulating my plan to involve many many stitch markers and will cast on again today.

This is not the end of this particular story. To Be Continued....

Order me up another weekend, please, this one was defective...

So Thursday just as I was leaving work I started feeling that back-of-my-sinuses scratchiness that precedes everything from mild head cold to full-blown strep. It didn't go as far as strep, but did degenerate into the bruised-all-over, joints-about-to-explode feeling of just about any virus I catch. I'm barely starting to feel better today, so will probably be fine for work tomorrow. Heck of a long weekend.

Just had a wire malfunction that occupied sweetie's time for an unintended hour trying to figure out which end of which cable to replace. Now I'm staring at my homework again and feeling really not motivated at all. So I'm puttering about and cleaning things. In my little world that seems to mean shuffling stuff from one side of the desk to the other while wiping up dust - dust which instantaneously reappears somehow.

I think I shall go wash my last installments of Greenwood Quitery's Swatch Club. Despite feeling like roadkill, I wanted to get out yesterday so we drove over to Guelph, to have a wander about, a meal, and pick up my quilting swatch subscription (50 little squares a month). They're used to me leaving it for a while and picking up 2-3 at a time. They warned me that April was my last one - they're discontinuing it. I'm a little disappointed, just because I'm a textile hound, but I suppose I must have about 1000 little squares now and I've used relatively few - a bunch of the kid prints went into Holly's quilt. I have an Atikinson Designs pattern I want to make up in a big size for our bed, though, and it involves lots of little squares, so I'll use up the Batik swatches on that. Then I'll have to act on my vague intention to make a tumbling blocks type quilt from charms. So I'm hardly short of stash - just disappointed that I won't get more. They have two other clubs - cotton and batik - where you get 8 fat quarters every two months, and a pattern and such, but maybe I'll forego that given my sock club interests, for now, anyway.

Off to laundry.

WHAT kind of knitting needles?

Along with the "what cute animal are you" (a frog, apparently), the Webbiverse has now given us the "what kind of knitting needles are you" quiz.

What kind of knitting needles are you?

You are interchangeable.Fun, free, and into everything, you've got every eventuality covered and every opportunity just has to be taken. Every fiber is wonderful, and every day is a new beginning. You are good at so many things, it's amazing, but you can easily lose your place and forget to show up. They have row counters for people like you!
Take this quiz!

Sleeping, Sweating, Stitching....

Oh my goodness where did another weekend go?

I am definitely facing an extension for my programming course... if I don't get a good whack in at the assignments on a weekend, they just plain don't happen until the next weekend, and if I'm busy then... so it goes.

So in the last 4 days I've seen a naturopath, a traditional doc, a whole gaggle of sleep technicians for an overnight stay, and spent most of two days with a room full of crazy women hopped up on club music, taking Laura Furtado's "Strip to Fit" instructional workshop. She's a rockin' young woman with more energy than I've EVER had, and really impressive entrepreneur. Despite the title, clothes were kept on - she spins this different ways depending on the audience, with more strip-oriented stuff happening at bachelorette parties and "sensual dance" being more the theme for gangs of fitness instructors like us.

Being one of the shortest, and THE roundest person in the class, I doubt this will be my true calling any day soon. But it was fun, and if my knees ever forgive me I might have a new dance step or two next time I'm up for a hi-lo aerobics class.

I was a little more "on" today than yesterday, because Friday night, I was at a lab all night for a sleep study. I'm not sure how they can think they get an accurate picture of your sleep profile in one abbreviated night in the lab. You're sleeping in a strange place with strangers all around. You're wired up like some experimental chimp, and the electrodes on your head are GLUED down. The rest are taped, and I'm allergic to adhesives apparently. Lights out is at 10:30 and they wake you up to un-wire you and kick you out at 5:30, but I was already awake by 5 having woken up repeatedly through the night. I walked home with blobs of glue in my hair and slept on it for 3 more hours, then had to go to the aerobics workshop. Even after washing my hair 3 times, every time we did some "sexy" head-flip or ran our hands through our hair (provocatively, of course) - I found more glue bits. And the rash from the adhesives was popping up all over. Add to that my wardrobe includes lots more regular-fit t-shirts than crop-top racerback tanks - I was definitely not sexy-dance material yesterday. Today I dug out the top of a bellydance costume and some nicer flare-cuff yoga pants, so it was a better day.

In between all that, I've been looking at my textbooks - and deciding to knit as I'm too braindead for Java. Mom's sock is working, slowly, but I think it's manifesting one of those "knitting black holes" the Harlot has written of - I haven't made it to the heel turn yet but I've knit and knit and knit. To get out of the gravity well, I cast on a toe for something else while I was at it, so am back to having an "upstairs" sock and a "downstairs" sock, or if I prefer, a "travelling" sock and "home" sock. We'll see.

I'm not showing pictures so it can be a surprise - the sock actually looks rather different than I expected from the yarn, but really cool.

More later. I need a shower, there's still a bit of glue behind my ear.

On my mind....

I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a clapotis from unattainable Koigu. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock. I'm knitting a sock.

A catching-up day

Well, it's back to the daily grind tomorrow despite the fact that I could probably more than fill another month away from work. Oh well.

Spent the day tidying up and finishing up. Look what's done:



They're comfortably snug on, and just the slightest struggle to GET on, but not as bad as some reported. I'm pretty happy with these. Love the Socks That Rock yarn. This is pair #7, and Pair #6 also made it off the needles on Friday (the Out of Phase socks, now in the sweetie's hands.. er, feet).

I've also finished a baby quilt (picture soon before I send it off) for a now-9-month-old, so that is off the to-do list. And I heat-set all of the dye painted fabric I made yesterday. Those aren't really worth picturing - it's apparent that I'm a stitcher, not a painter, though I like some of the colours I got.

I'm partway through a closet clean-up and pondering the next projects.

Sidewalk Rage

Dear Idiot in Minivan:

The bright, RED, round thing which is on top of the column of colourful bright round things at street intersections means STOP. Yes, you. STOP the vehicle you are driving.

Even if you are about to make a right turn.

If the instruction isn't quite clear, STOP means fully depress the left pedal, until such time as your vehicle ceases ALL forward momentum and is motionless. Only lifting your foot off the right pedal so you slow down and take the corner based on inertia does NOT constitute the STOP action. Failing to fully enact the STOP manoeuvre is, in fact, a violation of law in this Province.

Also in relation to the above, you know the little white lite-brite man sign? That means that the Pedestrians, that would be, ME, get to walk across the road. Yes, walk. I don't have to bust a knee to run out of your way, jerk, just because you have a horn and happen to think the rolling not-stop is a convenience option you have. Stuff it up your tailpipe, thank you.

In other events of today, I have in fact proven that I can walk and knit, while still being alert enough to avoid caffeine-hopped soccermoms (or soccerdads, didn't get that close a look) in minivans who don't know how to drive. I did also discover I cannot walk and knit IN THE DARK, as evidenced by the dropped stitch on the way home. Next week, we may progress to chewing gum in aerobics class, but I'm afraid I'll be taken out by the floor polisher.

Today's fun sock thing:



I wonder if anyone else in the RSC is finding their socks can stand up on their own? That used to mean they needed a wash, but apparently in this case it means Kaci's Inside Out pattern really has structure.

Blog Socks the.. umm, what the...???

Warning! RSC/NSK spoiler below, even though I think we all have our kits by now. Cruise on by if you don't want to see...




I'll wait...........



Yarn Harlot had a really sweet story to post today. Go read that....










OK, so this didn't completely surprise me, as I had read of/heard of some of the other Rockin' Sock Club members seeing this:



It makes me laugh though. Yes, this is A SOCK, it is meant to go on A FOOT. That is all.

The tension difference in the two knit patterns is quite funny though.

Sockumentary

It's handy having your own personal photojournalist around.

The Gallery page has been updated with some really quality photos of my knit works (and a couple of the cat) thanks to Adam. I helped a bit, buying white fabric and arranging, but he's done some spiff workup on them. Check the links to the right.

I also rearranged some of the quilty stuff to reflect the Works in Progress now finished, though I don't have the best Finished photos of all of them.

Vacation! Hurry up and relax!

For the next week, I'm not going to work. No big plans, nowhere else in particular to go, but Adam has this week off because he has to book all his time in July for the coming 12 months and just picked random times. So a few weeks ago I booked the same week off.

And I'm feeling stressed about it. There's so much neglected "when I get to it" stuff in my life, that I've cognitively cluttered the week already now I'm wondering how to get it all in. Well, I admit it's my issue, I'm working on it. I want to finish a now-8-months-overdue baby quilt and get it to New York. I want to clean. I have booked endocrinologist, physiotherapy, and massage appointments. I've picked up a couple extra classes to teach at the gym... all these should be good for me and not stressful. But I want to go hide in the closet. I'm fighting off a meltdown back into social phobia over a "girls night" invitation I've accepted for tonight, because I have homework - that I probably wouldn't do anyway, but it's preoccupying me.

Anyway, relieving the too-busy-ness a bit is the fact that I FINISHED the alligator socks. They're not back to Angry Alligators but they're close to "more trouble than they're worth" Alligators. While finishing the ribbing on the second one, I thought I'd pop the first on one of my cold feet, as hey, my feet were cold and there was at least one sock lying around with nothing better to do. I pulled it on, it fits ok... and ZZZIIIPPPPPP, oh look, a ladder in my knit, through the ribbing and all the way back down the leg. I had somehow dropped a stitch out of the last couple rows of ribbing and not noticed.

What saved this one was the sheer coincidence that the dropped stitch was in one of the two columns in the whole pattern repeat that was, indeed, just a column of knit stitches. So I didn't lose any of the maddening yarnovers I could never find - I could pick it back up with the crochet hook. PHEW. Once I got back to the ribbing, of course, I had to un-do the bind off and the first couple rows of ribbing, as not only had I not noticed I dropped the stitch, I somehow compensated and I could only pull the ladder back up to about halfway through the ribbing, then there was no ladder - I'd knit two together to close it without noticing.

For the record, un-knitting takes alot longer than knitting.

Here's the cranky Alligator masterpiece:



Here's a close-up:



I'm not sure they're my favourites, but they're OK. One toe is pointier than the other as I used more stitches in the cast-on on the second one, but I don't think up I'm to the hassle of taking it out. Beside, I'm on to something new again.



Despite my utter failure of a crochet chain cast-on, Toe #1 on the Rockin' Monsoon socks tickled me so much, I started toe #2 from the other end of the yarn ball and I think I'll knit both socks simultaneously. For Toe #2, I even found out how to do the chain - rather than crochet the chain and try to pick up bumps, you crochet the chain AROUND the first knitting needle! MUCH smoother. I found an illustrated how-to at that just made it seem so simple.

Now, I have yet to unzip that, but we'll see. Upward into the sock feet we go!

Today's Socks and Cats

Caution RSC/NSK - Spoiler Below!

So as of the 10th, here are the current two sock projects:



The one on the right is now finished, and looks big because my foot is a W size 7 and the sock is for a Men's 13. The one on the left... well, if you look back at last week, the 2nd Red Alligator sock doesn't appear to have progressed, does it? It has, it's just that half of its progress was going backwards.

Shortly after ripping it out the 3rd time, I came across one of those knitting tips that is so brilliant, and so obvious, I'm absolutely mortified that I hadn't thought of it. A knitter on the RSC/NSK Blog explained a "lifeline". You thread a piece of contrasting yarn or thin ribbon through the stitches on a row that is complete and correct. Knit on from there. If you make a mistake - you only rip back to the row with the ribbon, then you CAN pick up. So if you can see the little line of white that is NOW in that sock toe - that's my lifeline. No more ripping the whole sock out because I can't figure out how to pick up a yarnover.

This will be a very handy tactic in the complex project that arrived yesterday:



Yes, the Blue Moon Monsoon finally landed! This is installment one of my knitter's decadent indulgence, the Rockin' Sock Club from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. The yarn colourway is named "Monsoon" and the pattern, "Inside Out". I can't wait to start but I have to finish at least one of the two current socks - probably the Alligators as they're currently on the needle size I need. Mom, sorry, I'll start yours right after but I realized the RSK kit has some techniques in it that might make a nice cushy-foot sock for sore feet, so I want to try them out first. I can start one for you as I work on those.

Finally, cat status: I'm pretty sure that Maui is NOW at last gaining a little weight. He can't get enough of the junk food, and he gets fed a few times a day (whenever we're home to fight off the girls).



He is completely in love with the halogen lamp. I'm going to have to get the original one fixed, so he can have one (because he shadows everything else on my desk) and I can have one to read by.

Small milestones...

After several hours of intermittent hacking about, I have approximately half of my next homework assignment working. I'm hoping to make that 2/3 before bed, at least.

Here we have a photo of My Own Starry Night, reclining in the winter sunshine, as complete as it seems to want to be, for now:



I still think it needs more quilting, but I haven't got the skills to go with my ideas yet, so we're going to call it "done for now" and claim to have finished a quilt. I have to, because it's been stalling some other as-yet-unfinished ones.

Here we have the 2nd flip-top mittens:



Which have been done for a while but not photographed. This was a "kit" for which I threw out the pattern part and used the yummy yarn. The yarn is a handpainted silk from Sweaterkits, and almost matches the handpainted silk in the sweaterkits toque for which I did follow the pattern. I decided to partly re-engineer and partly improvise the flip-top pattern based on the one from "Not Just MORE Socks" that I used for Adam's Jitterbug flip-tops. It's not great - the base of my pinky is occasionally exposed - but it's close enough that I don't so much feel like pulling it out as doing something better next time.

And, the current two socks in progress:



I suppose you can argue that socks in progress do not count as milestones, but I put the qualifer SMALL in the title - getting the first sock of a pair done is a small milestone, as is getting the heel of a new sock turned via a new method I just tried for the first time (well, second, but first time successfully). I've decided the red sock is just the Red Alligator sock, because I didn't want Angry socks - my feet would probably not be happy if their socks were angry. The other one is a Straight Up Sock, something I started because the stitch pattern on the Red Alligator needs more concentration than I have when knitting while doing other things, but a Straight Up Sock can fill in as I can ALMOST do plain stockinette stitch without looking. Or when I'm tired. This will be Adam's next one and he doesn't mind at all that the sock seems to have a bit more pink in it than the ball of yarn appeared to at first.

I think I will stick to this method of having at least one challenging project and one more basic one on the go - it suits my can't-sit-still fidgetiness but also suits those times when I sometimes can't coordinate anything slightly complex while fidgeting.

Mom, I'll start you one as soon as the Alligators are done.

Sinking Feeling....

This little gizmo:



Is a piece of my kitchen faucet assembly. This little gizmo has A Lifetime Guarantee.

Contrary to what the naive might think, a Lifetime Guarantee is no guarantee that this little gizmo will function as specified for a lifetime - be it yours, mine, or its own. What "Lifetime Guarantee" means is that when this little gizmo spectacularly malfunctions, spraying water all over the inside of the kitchen cabinets, turning the kitchen garbage into a soggy compost bomb and the paper recycling into papier mache, pouring water out of the cabinets all over the hardwood, and leaving a sleepy coffee-deprived homeowner with surprisingly wet feet for being indoors on a dry day, you get a new one for free.

Claiming your new little gizmo has some prerequisites. First you have to turn off the water supply, and since you're crawling around in a half-inch of water in the kitchen cabinet anyway, you might as well mop up too. Then you have to find the malfunctioning part in the tangle of tubing and piping, a process which involves spraying more water all over to identify where the water is coming from, then turning the water supply back off again. Next step: figure out how to disconnect it. The disconnection process will be made more complicated by the fact that the gizmo appears to have been attached with a wrench, judging by the tool marks all over it despite the bright orange sticker on it that says "Hand Tighten Only" (possibly a cause of the failure, as the gizmo appears to have exploded along a spiral fracture line suspiciously following the tool marks). The disconnection will also involve skinned and bruised knuckles as it is wedged into THE most contorted position amongst the other pipes and tubes, and of course we must also endure the minor head injury that seems almost mandatory when any under-sink plumbing ventures occur.

Then, you're nearly home free. The last part of the Lifetime Guarantee replacement process is to find the plumbing supply place that has one in stock. In a fit of rational smartness, I got on the net and the phone and called before driving all over town (hint: Home Depot doesn't seem to carry this manufacturer!), and only had to go a few kilometres to the next-to-nearest Home Hardware. Today we love the GlenBriar Plumbing Showcase, the nice parts folks had even set the replacement aside for me after my call, and wandered out into the aisles to meet me when they noted a soggy perplexed woman with the gizmo in hand checking the shelves for similar looking parts.

From there, it was back home, and repeat the previous paragraphs all in reverse (minus the mopping up as I was not dumb enough to turn the water back on before reconnecting everything).

And this, dear reader, is why none of programming homework, quilting, knitting, or my taxes have yet been done today.

Mostly functional, again.

So after disassembling the computer case and poking every which way at my flakey Bluetooth, I relocated the CD I need and installed the right driver. Window says it doesn't need custom BT software drivers - but it does. My gadgets are now all conversing with the mothership, after an additional side-track into reinstalling the Palm software as well.

So, here's what my cat looks like lately:

And the back of him:

He's so cold with all that fur gone, that he's taken to sitting under my halogen desk lamp. Which I had to replace, as something shorted out my 12-year-old one that I loved.

But, at least he's continuing to eat and seems happy with the food tube removed.

In other adventures, what should arrive this past Monday but my shipment of Lorna's Laces from an Ebay-enabled dealer (that sounds so illicit!)

Guess which one is for socks for Mom? I don't think I meant to do that with the rest of the colours (the dark earthy tones) but they just happened that way.

And lest anyone think I'm just hoarding yarn, I AM being productive to merit my stashbuilding. This sock:

which some of you met last Saturday has been ripped out and re-started since that photo, and is a few ribbed rows away from done and will probably be finished tonight. I think I'm going to call these the Angry Alligator socks. The 12x8 stitch pattern, named "Small Capitals" in the stitch dictionary, looks more to me like the bumpy scales of some large reptile. I'm trusting since the bumps are on the outside I'll still be able to wear them. I deviated from the instructions and made the heel back in the same pattern, so they may only be usable as clog socks - which is fine, as I think the red/purple variegated yarn will go with my red-purple Naots or purple Keen clogs. I can't wait for this weather to get over with it so I can wear clogs again.

As the moment, the elements are doing their best to encase the condo in pebbly ice.

Please stand by, blog is experiencing technical difficulties....

The phone with the camera still won't talk to the computer. Actually, I think it's the computer's fault. Someone, send me a Mac. Or something. My internal Bluetooth is absent, an external one finds devices but can't talk to any of them, and the wire connection tells me there's a modem attached but can't recognize the phone. And I'm done fighting with it for tonight.

Anyway - two more socks are on the go, the complicated red one with the 12-stitch-by-8-row patter and a "plain" one in a fuzzy yarn that has one blue ply and one variegated ply - kinda cool. On the quilt front, "My Own Starry Night" gave me some grief when I tried to add more quilting - 20 minutes to do two lines, and 3 hours to rip it out again. It's now staring me down from the loft banister again. But it's got a binding and has survived a washing, so I suppose I can qualify it as a "finished" quilt even if it seems under quilted.

Maui is still increasingly naked. Dr. Bonnie took out his feeding tube because we got him eating, sort-of. I broke down and bought him "purple food" - Whiskas from the supermarket. It's what his old lady fed him, all along, and what we took him off of thinking it was causing his "food allergy" and fur loss. But after 6 weeks + of tube feeding exclusively veterinary prescription food, the fur loss is worse than ever, so we can't blame the purple food. So I dished him up some purple food, and he ate for the first time in almost a month. Yeah, sure - he's eating the feline equivalent of a diet of Twinkies, but he's eating. And he's happier without the tube, though it remains to be seen if he grows his fur back now.

Bit of a fumble, but nice recovery.

In some situations, customer care is everything.

Now, for those folks who work hard in my probably-too-often-frequented local dining establishments, I have nothing but respect. I don't think I've ever been nasty to a food service worker, even a bad one. I'm happy that I've never had to do such a job - not that I don't value it, but I think I'd be terrible at it and I've worked hard to cultivate a skill base that keeps me employed elsewhere. I really appreciate the folks who do such a job as waiting tables, and extra props to the ones who can make your average diner feel like their favourite guest of the day. It's a skill and it takes work. I try to tip well by default, cutting it only if there was a problem.

That said, I can be really put out by a bad customer service experience, particularly when it occurs during what should have been the highlight of my day. Such a thing happened on Valentine's Day this year. We visited a new, highly-hyped local upscale place, and suffered some - let's call it "really strange" treatment from our table server. Strange in that she wasn't unpleasant or rude, but seemed to just have completely missed the point of the leisurely-fine-dining restaurant she was working in, and wound up effectively shooing us out the door before we were half-done, quite pleasantly, mind you. The spousal euphemism and I were just standing there in the snow wondering what exactly happened to our special dinner out.

We stewed about this for some hours after we were home, at which point I puzzled out that we'd really been treated poorly, though with a smile. We were so stunned it hadn't sunk in right away.

So, I wrote a letter. I don't need to share the exact letter or tedious details of all that happened, but I addressed it to the managers/owners and clearly explained what happened and why we were offended. I didn't insult anyone and I didn't ask that anyone be taken to task, but let him know what might prompt us to NOT return and that perhaps it should be diplomatically and professionally discussed with his staff.

Today, the spouse gave me a heads up that said restaurant owner left me a message on the home machine, so I called him back from work, after lunch and before the dinner rush.

This gentleman was nothing but class. He THANKED me for my complaint. While stating that there was no excuse for the treatment, he did explain that he had some new and some temporary staff all on hand for Valentine's day and he obviously hadn't made the lay of the land clear to them, and he apologized for that. This is class from a manager, too - no blame, not stooping so low as to appease a customer with graphic descriptions of sanctions against his team, he completely owned the situation. I'm sure it will be discussed with someone, but I hope it's done in the way I intended (my letter actually was very constructive) and used as a learning task for the staff. I think from talking to him it will be.

On top of it all, he finished the call by telling me to watch my mail for the gift certificate he would be forwarding so we could give his establishment another shot.

Oh, and before I forget to mention - customer service fumble aside, the food was really very good, so I'm happy to take him up on his hospitality. Check this out if you're looking for special-occasion dining in K-W: Boa Nova Rodizio Grillhouse

Bad techie, work not for blogging....

So, by way of excuse, it was DEAD SLOW at work today. The US has their "President's Day" holiday and as 90% of our activity is generated by US customers - they weren't there. We were, and we were bored.

I sheepishly admit to finding other ways to occupy myself while waiting for an account executive and a product manager to coordinate a meeting, besides updating all my open calls to say "customer was away, left another voicemail".

About 3 intermittent hours of my day were spent catching up on The Yarn Harlot's blog archives. I admit it, I'm hooked on a knitting blog. I can't really describe the phenomenon, but this blog is so popular it crashes servers (and leaves thousands of knitters twitching when it does). Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is a prodigious knitter, but also a very talented writer and humourist, and there's more than a bit of wry social commentary in there. I would love to meet her someday, I may have to join the local knitting guild in hopes that they get her to repeat her visit from earlier this year.

To my credit, my digression into wooly blogs kept me from getting roped into the intense and animated discussions going on around me on the topic of Britney Spears latest hair and bodyart choices. NOBODY had enough to occupy them today.

I came home to find the object of my adoration being even more adorable in the kitchen, having IM'd me earlier to say dinner was on for 6. Unfortunately, I also found the sick cat missing even more fur than he had been missing when I left him. Yes, Maui, though slowly recovering a tiny bit of weight, his spirits and a bit more of his freaked-out attitude, has developed an aversion to his own fur and is pulling it out and leaving it in heaps all over the condo. He's at least not ripping his skin raw as well, as far as we can find, but he's looking awfully mangey. I'd post pictures but I had to rebuild the Windows box last week and it's not set up to talk to the camera phone again yet. Maybe by the time I do that, I'll have a completely naked cat.

It is an interesting property of Siamese that the darker fur grows where they're cold. Well, if he strips all his fur off, his skin is pink - then it turns this blue-black colour after a while. I thought the first bit was a bruise, but the skin turns dark where it's cold, too, apparently.

Off for some homemade lasagna now! I may work on the picture upload thing if I can get the last 1/3 of my computer assignment done.

Planetary Conjunction

Syzygy is, I think, a really cool and under-publicized word.

I was able to use it today not only in a sentence but a short essay. It was my entry for a contest I hope to win.

I won't know for a month and I'm not telling any more that that, because it's a members-only contest, so it either won't do you any good, or if you're a member too, I don't want you stealing my cool word.

Wikepedia has a page discussing the etymology of syzygy.

Kindred and Sisterhood....

Don't read my blog today, I'm a Valentine humbug. Alison, did you get your dead rat?

Go read YarnHarlot's Feb 14 post instead - she ROCKS. I have nothing to add to that amazing essay on real, whole-wheat, LOVE with teeth.

Happy Heart day, now somebody go clean a bathroom!

Stash moratorium may fail quickly....

So at the moment, a second pair of flip-top mittens have been finished, and I was staring at my yarn bin wondering what to do next, having nothing on needles for the first time since October.


As Yarn Ho stashes go, this one isn't bad (yet). My fabric stash is still bigger, volume-wise and probably square-footage-of-fabric wise. And both still fit in one closet. I'm a long way from SABLE yet (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy - got that one from YarnHarlot though I don't know if she coined it). BUT, I had decided in the name of economy and the fact that I can only make one sock every couple of weeks or so, to back off on yarn shopping.


But then.... I was checking out Blue Moon to see if they had posted about mailing the first installment of my Rockin' Sock Club. And I spotted this yarn.

(I admit to borrowing the pic, but I've linked to them by way of credit!)

Now, normally, browns aren't my colour. But this colourway is variegated with chocolate, tan, cream... and a bright blue. Chocolate, tan and cream like the shading on a Siamese cat. And blue, like bright blue Siamese eyes. The name of this feline colourway?

.... get this .....

Lucy.

They made a yarn the colour of Siamese cats, and named it Lucy. All together now: "Awwwwwww!"

I may just have to get me some of that.

(For the one or two of you who may be reading and don't know, my first two Siamese were named Lenny and Lucy, and both died in 2003).

Email post testing

Blogger has this function, supposedly, where you can email in a post.

This might be handy for travel. or quick updates from someone else's
B-Berry (one of the few gadgets I am actively avoiding getting).

This is a test message, from a very slow workday - I'm on one of those
remote connections to a user system that takes 30 seconds to refresh each
keyclick.

Continuing Chemo Cat, and This Is Not A Sock.

Well, of all the many things I really wanted to accomplish this weekend, I managed these:

Flip-top mittens for the SO made from that yummy Colinette Jitterbug yarn. They look a bit wonky either when not on a hand or on my too-small one, but they mostly fit Adam. The pic was just before I sewed on the buttons and button loops to hold the tops back.

My other accomplishment.. well, two actually, including the lasagna that's getting ready for dinner .. was keeping Maui fed through another setback.

My poor mangled cat is a chemical cocktail right now. Right around the time of his first chemo dose a couple of weeks ago, he had some very disturbed intestines, so to speak, so he was taken OFF the Leukeran and put on metronidazole for 8 days and fenbendazole for 6 - antibiotics and anti-parasitics respectively, thinking that his problem was possibly infection picked up or agitated out by the surgery.

Now, 3 days after finishing that course, we were back on the Leukeran, and found Friday night that he has an infection around the insertion of his feeding tube. Some nasty, smelly muck had his tube, his remaining fur, and his collar all glued together.

So, another call to the vet and some after-hours pick up of emergency antibiotics, and we've stepped up the saline soaks of his insertion site. The poor guy has lost his appetite again so we're back to using the tube, and all he wants to do is sleep. And bless his fuzzy little butt, he's being really good about all the abuse - he's pretty tolerant of wet compresses being smeared all over him and he's even purring and crawling into bed - which he's never really done - to stay warm and comfy.

So, the poor guy now has 3 or 4 pills a day instead of 2 or 3, adding azithromycin into his mix. But, hopefully this is a temporary setback and I'll soon be able to report some weight gain (him, not me).

Short blurbs....

The strep is in retreat....
The sunset sock is found (was hiding out in a pair of jammies)...
I've developed a thing for fuschia and lime green. You should see my toenails.

I do not need more yarn.
I have much yarn already.
I will not buy more yarn.
I will not buy more yarn.
I will not buy more yarn.
(Bart Simpson as a knitter).

However, if anyone wanted to BUY me yarn...

I've been drooling at these web sites. Lorna's Laces and Colinette.

More yarn projects later. I'm finished the fingerless-glove part of a convertible mitten for the spousal entity. Colinette Jitterbug Jewel colour. Yummy.

Strep and other nastiness...

So, this one'll be short because typing is painful.

My annual strep event is a bit early this year - actually, I guess the really bad ones are happening on a 10-month cycle or so, with little one-day bouts of unexplained fevers in between.

If you read my sister's LJ, there's a strange parallelism going on here.

So, THIS time - I had a 39.5 degree fever this morning, brought down to 38.5 by Advil, and I haven't been able to swallow anything but liquids. The penicillin I started this afternoon was a challenge.

I am ALSO going for an ECG. My doc didn't seem to concerned, but my heartbeat is all out of whack. I don't know whether she really wasn't concerned, or didn't want to alarm me. I have, as long as I can remember, noted that when I really exert myself - I mean REALLY, like biking up the Escarpment in one press - that my heart will occasionally skip a beat then follow the skip with a big, floppy-feeling WHUMP. I've mentioned this to past docs and they've all said it's not unusual, if it's infrequent and just once, and if I don't feel ill or dizzy. And it usually is infrequent - it'll happen once in a blue moon, always after exertion or maybe a really hot hot tub.

But with this bout of strep, it was happening constantly all night long last night. It lessened slightly today- and of course wouldn't happen at all when my doc was actually listening - but it's back now. So ECG tomorrow, I guess.

In better Maui-news, not only has the boy been eating on his own - including cleaning up some, ahem, recycled food the Sprout! deposited around today, but he's decided to be a purry lap cat. Now, that IS weird. Since we got him he's seemed quite uninterested in us, though he likes strangers. The spousal unit pragmatically pointed out that he's probably enjoying my 39 degree fever. But it's nice, I'll take it.

At least I got an off-work note for the rest of the week. I'm going for a warm bath and off to bed, now.

Greeny-Blue Blog Sock, and Maui status

So, well, sock #7 (4a) and I have resolved our differences, mostly, and it's almost done.

I've actually temporarily tucked it away to rest on a spare circular needle, while I get its mate started. This is the largest sock yet in terms of foot length, as Adam's previous pairs are a bit snug. But I was concerned, as this was a toe-up species, that I might not know where to stop and might not have enough yarn for its mate.

As for the cat status - slow progress is being made. We've got him up to about 48 mls ( a FULL 10 ml syringe is 12 mls) a feeding in his tube - AND - he's started slurping up the contents of the refill bowl himself, but doesn't have a lot. He's busy having hairball issues too, as he has another large naked patch he's cleared off his side and back under the harness that was holding his tube on - so I changed it to just a collar with the tube wrapped to it. He had a bit of a downturn into withdrawn, sullen hiding Friday and I'm not sure if that was the hairballs (he ejected quite the volume of them...) or starting his meds, but he seems to be a bit up again today.

Right now he's supervising my computer time from a heap of old towels in my closet opening (they're intended for cheap, pet-quilt batting, so I might as well let him warm up on them).

Gotta run - dinner's on.

Wooly woes and wows....

So, the WOE part is, MY WASHING MACHINE ATE ONE OF THE SUNSET SOCKS!!!! Auurgh!

3 weeks to make socks, I wear them twice, and then one has wandered off into that alternate dimension where socks go to be reincarnated as tangled wire hangers in the closet. I've checked all the other laundry done around that time - it doesn't seem to be hiding in a pillowcase or gym shirt. I'm not even going to check the closet - because I can't knit hanger wire. There's no point.

The wooly WOW is probably an epiphany only to me, not anyone actually experienced with yarn. So far, the knitting has been with the not-cheap-but-not-crazy-priced Regia sock yarn - the self-patterning type. It's 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon. At this exact moment, though, I'm knitting up a mitten (or, well, so far it's a cuff) with a 100% superwash Colinette Jitterbug yarn. I think it was a $23 hank of yarn. WOW is it nice to work with. It's moving smoothly, my hands are more relaxed, it's "springier" - came from bouncy sheep, I guess. I must admit, during my previous knitting adventures back in university, yarn was yarn. As I'm re-learning the craft, I have of course come across all kinds of info on different yarns, but it hadn't quite sunk in like this before.

I can understand now why I've read how some knitters hate cotton yarn - nice as the finished garment might be, it's stiff and inelastic and the actual task of knitting will be more strain.

Hopefully, these mitts will be as nice to wear as to knit.

In an unrelated post-script, Maui-cat while not having regained any substantial body mass, is both tolerating his tube feeding well, AND having a munch at kibbles on his own now. Chemo pills and pred start tomorrow.

The Beginning Adventures of Chemo Cat

So, Maui and I have a diagnosis. My him-cat has a low-grade form of lymphoma. I cannot recall Dr. Bonnie's specific term, but she had explained it as a possibility when we did all our biopsies.

At least there is an answer. And despite the dire term "lymphoma" (yes, cancer.... again!) it is actually something manageable in a way that can make him better and keep him healthy for years. Basically, he's on chemotherapy in perpetuity.

Prednisone once a day, then every third day we add a leukeran. Dr. Bonnie herself says she's had cats live 2-4 years and has seen many last longer. I guess it just keeps the crazy cell growth in check.

So, my cat is still a pathetic scrawny little thing with a tube in his neck just now, but we have a reason, and we have hope. He starts the chemo Friday and we're going to do less tube-feeding (by a tiny bit) than we might have in hopes that the combination of less food and prednisone will get him eating on his own again.

And so we go!

Maui update...

Well, he's probably sore and dopey, but Maui's OK, so I get my kitty back this time.

Vet says there were no significant visual findings. Slightly enlarged lymph nodes which may or may not mean anything.

We're still waiting on biopsy results on every little bit of him that was biopsied. And he has a feeding tube now so we can fatten him up again whether he thinks he wants to eat or not.

He's staying with the doc for another day then we get him home tomorrow.

In other news (though most of you readers are family who tell me these things), sadly, my eldest uncle passed away this morning. While not a surprise, given that he had contracted pneumonia and had compromised lungs from long-ago industrial damage, it is nonetheless very sad. He was a kind and quiet, ubiquitous presence during my childhood and teen weekends at the grandfolk's cottage, quietly making sure things worked and kids didn't drown or break their heads or such while his wife and mother-in-law frantically tried to feed everyone and clean everything.

Family gossip has had us worried several times in the past year that he was on his way. Fortunately Adam and I got a visit in the past summer. Uncle was not as addled as the women around him were trying to make out, or at least not all the time, and still had his sense of humour. As we finished dinner, he calmly looked down at dessert bowl he had just emptied, and slyly and quietly said " I think I'll have some ice cream now".

Adam didn't get the best portrait he's ever taken, but he did get a snap or two for the family gallery (you know where that is if you're anyone concerned).

Nailbiting....

Maui cat is in surgery. We ran out of non-invasive options to diagnose his dramatic weight loss, and at a check-up last night he was down to 6lbs, 7 oz (from being over 11 lbs early last year).

Of course my worry is that it's something like Lenny had - extensive, advanced abdominal cancer. Lenny was not woken up from surgery once that was found. I don't have strong clinical grounds to suspect that - Maui is still more alert and active than Lenny was, he is not exhibiting any acute pain, there's no fluid buildup like we had been finding. But there's no innocuous explanation yet either.

Dr. Bonnie assures me that most "exploratory surgeries" show nothing on a gross level, and a significant portion of the rest reveal something fixable. The point of the exploratory is to allow extensive biopsy. Maui will also get a feeding tube for a while (assuming he pulls through) because his eating is intermittent - he just seems to not want to bother with food for extended periods, then he eats almost normally, but he's finicky.

Will update when I know more.

Sock in a Rut

So, sock #7 has been half done, pulled out, nearly done and discovered to be much too tight, pulled out, and given up on.

In the interim, I made a hat - twice - and pulled it all out - twice. I apparently have not yet figured out how to translate the gauge of a swatch, which I got right, into the gauge of a two-yarn knit-in-the-round, accessory, which was different by 1.5 stitches per inch.

The first two rows of the hat are now re-started on a needle size two larger, after more swatching and some math.

Now I'm back to the sock. I've decided since I cannot seem to get past the heel, I'll start at the toe for this one. Yet another learning experience, but I've got it started again.

I love the web. If you can't find exactly what you want, you can find enough to build it. After giving up on provisional cast-ons because I couldn't crochet an even chain, Knitty.com got me to two pages that I managed to hybridize. I first found this: TipTop Toes, and the figure-8 toe seemed a good idea, but it turned out gappy. Then I dug up the Magic Cast On, which, in its text, claims to address the gappy fig-8 toe issue. However, once cast-on, I couldn't manage to start the rounds on 4 dpns.

So I somehow hybridized the two. I used the magic cast-on, which seems to be a hybrid itself of the long-tailed and figure 8 cast-ons, but with this mod: I cast on to a larger, circular needle, then slid the stitches of Judy Becker's needle #2 onto the cable, and knit straight across needle #1 with my first, smaller, dpn. I then pulled the circular all the way through so the stitches originally on #2 were pushed onto #1, and then I knit across those with the 2nd dpn. This left me with my toe started as for Wendy Johnson's figure 8 toe, but much tighter in the cast-on rows, but not so tight I couldn't work them.

I'm guessing the Magic Toe is alot easier for one accustomed to and intending to work on two circulars, but given the investment I've recently made in both yarn and all kinds of sizes of dpns, spending $30 per pair on paired circulars will have to wait paycheque or two. Besides, I need lots more practice at the basics, too.

So, stay tuned - I'll see if I can get this sock "toe up" past the heel, then we'll be rolling. I may return to the hat, too, as it goes alot faster than the sock. More stitches per round but lots fewer rounds.

Sock-pic-free blog

The socks have slowed a bit, due to the holidays and the fact that my anxiety over the other things I'm neglecting has picked up. I DID finish the sunset-coloured mate to the sock in the last post, and having re-started Adam's next sock AGAIN - I'm now almost done the leg and am trying to find a set of GOOD (as in, comprehensible to me) instructions for an alternate heel.

I've finished one of the two overdue baby quilts, which ended up being an Xmas present for the now 8-months-old neice. The one for my friends now-6-month-old preemie is still frustrating me. I think I chose the wrong mix of fabrics and thread, as I can't seem to get the free-motioning really going - thread keeps breaking despite all the tuning I'm trying to do.

I'm a month past my start date for my AthabascaU correspondence course, and while I've done some reading and the mandatory "say hello on the class chat room" post, that's about it. I printed the exercise sheet for unit 1, I suppose.

Neither my "day" job nor the gym job (occasional aerobics instructor, if you didn't know that)takes a holiday break, so I've been at both of those so far today.

I'd really rather be knitting.

Blog sock at sunset

Here is sock #5. It's mate, #6, as well as #7, are on the needles now, though #7 is giving me no end of trouble getting started and I keep re-starting it.

Things I have learned so far, as a sock newbie:
1. "Cast on Loosely" is very important. Use needles a size or two larger than called for to cast on, or you'll have a perfectly fit sock with an opening too tight for a foot to go through.
2. Rib tightly. Use needles a size or two SMALLER than the pattern to k1, p1 rib stitch the cuff. Unless you want a slouchy sock, which is not always a good thing.
3. If I drop a stitch in the first 3 rows of ribbing, it's not worth the tangling and eyestrain to try and fix it - start over. It seems after the first three rows, me and my crochet hook can usually sort it out.
3. a) A crochet hook or two are vital to knitting - picking up stitches is much easier with them.

Things I still need to figure out:
1. A better heel than the one in the pattern I have. Don't like the flap-and-turn one, it's hard to pick up the right number of stitches exactly evenly or turn with completely neat stitches.

2. How to make a Kitchener graft not look lumpy.

3. Lots more pattern stitch variations.

In non-sock news of late, I'm at the end of my second day off sick. Or, almost two full days - I made it to work yesterday but was on a fast downhill slide so came home mid-morning. Today, I had to teach at the gym in the morning, but came home and took my aches and slight fever back to bed. I'm up again with a mug of neo citran about to go out to an appointment I had (long booked, before I got sick) but after a bout of sweats and chills after taking an Advil, the fever seems down. I'll see how I feel in an hour as to whether or not I go to Yoga.

Blog Sock: The Blues

Well, here we are on pair number 2. These will be Adam's once I'm done. The first one is a near fit - he thinks it is a tiny bit short in the foot. So I'm torn. Do I make the second one a half-inch longer, which offends my sense of symmetry, or keep it the same length and have his toes wear through both of them? Decisions, decisions....

Blog Sock the Finale: My First Socks

So I've learned a bit - namely that I need to learn more, but I have a wearable, if not svelte, pair of socks. The ribbing at the top is useless - waaaay too loose, makes it look like they have scalloped edges instead of cuffs. I suppose I could pretend I meant to do that, but that's kinda silly on a brown-and-blue striped boot sock kind of thing.

I've got the cuff on my next pair started and it's going much better already. They're a blue tiger-stripey pattern and will be for the Spousal Unit.

Blog Sock II: The Left Foot

Yay! I made this.

Now the trick is getting the one for the other foot to match. More to follow....

High Irony in the IT world....

OK, so... I live my daily life based on a PDA. My cel phone knows who my friends are (and even tries to phone all by itself - sorry Sissy if I woke you up). My work environment includes integrated email and calendaring to plan all of my daily tasks down to the minute, and what my company DOES is all about digital knowledge, planning, scheduling and integration.

So today, coincident with very important European diplomats being let loose in our building, the management swag fairies came bouncing by with goodies for everyone.

A very nicely produced 2007 day planner. Yep. The dead tree variety.

This is one of those moments where I look around for the hidden camera.

Blog Sock...

So, long time no blog again.

Had a whirlwind week. Last week - er, about this time - we got word that the spousal euphemism's remaining grandparent, Bubbi, had begun a hunger strike, and decided she was done with it all, somewhere past 92 years of age. She passed away on Tuesday evening, with children and grandchildren at her side or nearby.

This has taken it's toll this week, on some folks near and dear and many more who are more distant to me. Not really my place to discuss what pertains to most of those others, but safe to say it's one of those occasions that, no matter how close or not to the actual deceased, gives you cause to see some interesting human interactions. Also safe to say, no matter what your involvement, it's kinda draining.

So, after being off work Thursday, with notice, and Friday, on less notice, I've spent Saturday dealing with a car stereo installation that took about 4 hours instead of one, and part of today catching up on work I didn't do Thursday and Friday.

In between the chores, I've gotten myself to the top of the heel on the very first sock I've ever knit.

For some reason, after buying my latest favourite sweater - twice, in case I wear out the first one - this fall, I decided I wanted to learn to knit again. The motivation for that was being able to reproduce this cool sweater, in a colour I like better, whenever I get around to wearing it (them) out. But I'm not there yet.

So following that, for no reason that I can particularly recall, I decided I wanted to knit socks. Now, I never WAS that skilled a knitter. Stockinette and garter stitch with no embellishments whatsoever were the limit of what I'd ever learned. And I gave up when I realized I really don't like sweaters much, and afghans less. BUT thinketh me, I like socks. I'm constantly buying weird socks and constantly annoyed at how fast they wear out. So, thinketh me, I shall knit socks.

Well, in favour of the idea, a nice sock can be knit with only my two favourite stitches, knit and purl. Generally. NOT in its favour, the idea involves learning to knit "in the round", and small at that. It's generally done using 4 to 5 thin, short little double-pointed needles.

This is a bit more challenging than just two sticks. Imagine trying to tie 100 shoes while holding a hedgehog in both hands. It's not exactly the same because a ball of sock yarn won't pee on you if it's upset, but close.

Anyway, after starting and pulling out my cast-on rows about 10 times and consequently wrecking the first couple metres of a ball of self-patterning sock yarn, the spousal euphemism's mom got me re-started on Friday and we are rolling. I've gotten the knack of keeping my hands working with all the little pokey bits sticking out at all angles rather than sticking in to me. For some reason my ribbing, which should be the tighter part at the top of the sock, is looser than the rest, and I've magically acquired 3 extra stitches by the time I got to the ankle, but I have a tube of yarn and the beginnings of a heel flap.

So, in addition to half a dozen unfinished quilting projects, and I now have the more ambulatory (think portable to boring business meetings, where a sewing machine is not) artsy complement to my textile addiction.

Looking for a 12-step program next... (hello... my name is Johanna and I'm a knitter.. er, quilter... er, knitter...).

Slightly disappointed though generally at peace...

I love this time of year. I like cooler weather, and I like cozy clothes, I even like rain, actually. I like when open windows bring cool, fresh, leafy fall air in but don't freeze the place.

I'm slightly disappointed that I picked up the pager for a sick colleague this weekend. Pager is a mixed blessing. Every time it beeps, I get at least an hour's bonus pay. But, I've just missed a hayride and a corn maze run - it's been beeping through some afternoon birthday plans I would have attended had it been quieter.

But the generally at peace part is overriding the "bummer, no hayride" reaction. In between beeps, I'm puttering around the office cleaning up, and Freecycling stuff. Re-ordering my space when it gets out of hand is kind of a zen exercise, it lowers my stress level immensely (I should do it at work).

I'm talking to a dozing, purring cat, who has just claimed her new "spot" in my re-ordered office. Also good for stress level.

And, since Adam did go to the birthday hay ride, I smoked up the windowsill with a pinch of incense (sorry honey - should be gone by the time you're home). I love my tiny cauldron and real, loose incense - though today's was a bit of an experiment. It was a blend called "Geminii" that I of course had to have a small sample of. Un-burned, it smells like a lovely potpourri, or maybe a seasoning blend - it has lavender and fennel in it, and I think also coriander and a bit of basil. It smells totally different when smoking, though. Oh well. This is why I buy "sample" sizes.

So, now that the beeping HAS wrapped up (for the moment) I'll finish my little tidying-project and maybe go take a walk before joining the birthday party for dinner. You go do the same! Or at least, open a window really wide and take a few deep breaths of Autumn.

Mind the Gap - Aaargh!!!

So, if you know enough to read my blog, you probably know I'm an ersatz aerobics instructor. You may not know that for a year or so now, I've been using an iPod to play my workout music at class, rather than drag around 20 very expensive CDs.

There's a minor problem with this - yes, it really is minor - that's gotten my back up now thanks to some merciless teasing from Apple. You see, an Aerobics CD is mixed to have each song blend seamlessly into the next, with no pauses and exact 32-count phrasing. The minor problem is that if you just digitize the CDs, iTunes (or probably any other software), can't help but put a small gap in each track. This RUINS aerobics music. I'm not kidding. Toss a little hitch into otherwise evenly phrased music, and an entire class of spandex-clad workout maniacs will fall like dominoes. It ain't pretty.

So the solution, which has been satisfying until two days ago, is to rip the entire CD as one long track. That works fine, as long as your CD is exactly as long as your class. This option keeps music seamless, and the limit is just that you can't jump to the next track, go back, skip one, or re-order the tracks. I've been OK with this so far and I've actually gotten pretty good at fast forwarding the exact right amount of seconds if I need to.

So what happened two days ago? Apple Inc's advertising machine ran up, bit me on the ass, and ran away giggling, knowing I had been infected. How? Well, when I loaded iTunes to get my latest podcast episodes, iTunes offered to update itself to the latest new version.

The new version featuring GAPLESS PLAYBACK. Yes, that shiny white one-mouse-button-only interface informed me that the latest step in iEvolution had happened. I could now play my continuous CDs continuously, without sacrificing my track-by-track control!!!!

Well, this seemed to good to be true, but I tried it. I re-ripped one of my workout CDs and gave it a try - YES!!!! iTunes does indeed play the CD with the lovely smooth mixed-in transitions between tracks. No one-extra-beat in the last phrase. (No lawsuits agains aerobics instructors for injuring a whole class).

A few hours later I had most of my Aerobics CDs re-encoded.

Then the bomb dropped. When I moved them to the iPOD, as opposed to iTunes, the GAPS are BACK. Oh, yes... "the gap came back, the very next day, yes the gap came back.....".

It turns out, iTunes, being the "first one's free" gateway product to the ever-addictive iPod, gets new features but they can only be used with the NEW iPod. Er, that would be the NEWEST new iPod, the one Apple released 2 days ago. It's kind of an iPod 5G-and-a-half. iPod video with bigger battery, brightness control, and GAPLESS PLAYBACK.

I only have an iPod photo (4G). Now, it does a great job. It does the same great job it did 3 days ago, and I still have 45 of its 60 GB capacity free. But just like you feel disappointed when the option package for your new car gets 3 improvements the month after you bought it - well, there ya are. Now that I know the holy grail of digitized aerobics music CAN be had, I am both covetous of the new innovation, and quite resentful because really, Apple should be able to release an update for the older iPod to do this.

If I ever meet Steve Jobs, I may hug him but I'll kick him in the shins, too. Just not sure what I'll do first.

Me, Dr. Who, and Arthur Dent...

What do the three people in the title have in common?

Well, OK, YOU may have thought of something weirder, but what I was going for was the not-infrequent cravings for a lovely cup of tea. I've been a tea-fancier in general since I was kid, starting my coffee habit much later.

Lately, I've been aided and abetted shamelessly in feeding my tea addiction by the most adorable little shop down the block from me, Distinctly Tea. Their URL is http://www.distinctlytea.com, share it around, I want their upcoming online launch to succeed so I can get more cool tea stuff close to home.

Distinctly Tea carries several hundred varieties of teas, all of which can be purchased loose in varying quantities. They can stock you up on all kinds of tea brewing paraphernalia, and the staff are walking encyclopediae of tea lore.

In the past year or so I've learned:

That you should never boil water for green, white, or oolong teas - use hot water but below the boil (80-90 degrees C).

That one of my favourite teas, Lapsang Souchong, comes from ONE mountain in China.

"Chai" means "tea" in Hindi and other middle-eastern languages. "Masala Chai" is the proper term for the spiced teas marketed as "chai" in North America

Rooibos is not a tea, per se - it is its own thing, the leaf of a bush from South Africa (as "tea" is the leaf of a bush from the orient).

Longer brewing is not the right way to make stronger tea. Use more tea, infuse for a short time.

That tea in a tea bag from a store shelf is almost intolerably poor quality.

Yes, that's it - I'll admit it, I'm now a tea snob, and I'd probably give the Doctor or Arthur Dent a good run in brewing the perfect cup nowadays.

Check out Distinctly Tea, though. If you'd like any, let me know.

A little bit of "glad"ness in the rain...

I did something yesterday that I used to do frequently in Guelph (when I lived across the road from the Farmer's Market there) but don't have as much opportunity for here.

I bought myself flowers. Gladiolas, to be specific.

I love gladiolas. I have thought they were the brightest, happiest flowers ever, even when I didn't know WHAT they were. For the longest time I couldn't find them, then in Guelph, there was a vendor who always had truckloads of them, mid-July to mid-September. When I could spare the $5, I'd buy a dozen a week, and they'd usually last for two, so I'd rotate them all summer.

I had no idea where I'd picked up this affinity for these flowering bulbs, until a few years ago, a couple years after my grandmother died. I was visiting the ole' family cottage and noted that my aunt who is now its custodian always had them on the table. "They were your grandmother's favourite", she told me. They were often planted around the cottage. Without ever having taken note of that memory consciously, I realized that was where I had often seen them. Childhood summer weekends at Grandma and Grandpa's summer place. Even though many of those days have now faded from memory, I can't help but feel sunshine and a fresh breeze off Lake Erie when there's a bucket of Gladiolas around.

Happy day, yesterday, when I wandered up to St. Jacobs Market, crowded despite the rain, even before 10 am. I picked up some cheese and nice bread, blackberries and a coffee, and on the way out passed a soggy flower vendor's tent - with the gladiolas in those plastic buckets, tucked in the back, $6/dozen.

I don't care if it's rained all weekend, the plumbing in the building is shut down, and we can't wash or cook. I've got two vases full of the happiest flowers ever.