I heart ravelry

So, in the pic of crumpets, there are two different dye lots at work there. One above the white stripe, and one below. A friend of mine suggested breaking up the dyelots by adding in a stripe, and while it DOES help, I can tell there's a difference.

OH NO! What to do?!?!?!? I had spent hours of my Saturday obsessively working on the top part of crumpets (I'm making the 1 yo size). In a bout (sp?) of desperation, I posted to the Yarn:ISO forum on Ravelry. Trumpets and drums please!!!

Less than 24 hours later, a wonderfully nice woman, Jen, with a very apropos blog title, came to my rescue! Not only is she willing to part with a few skeins of her sugarplum in the dyelot that I need, SHE WAS DOING THIS WHILE HER DAUGHTER WAS UNDERGOING SURGERY. Ok, maybe not at the very moment, but close enough. How's that for knitterly kindness? I'm happy to report that the surgery went well, but please send positive vibes her way for me, huh?

technophobic... ??

It's not that I am scared of technology, more that technology hates me. My router/modem kicked MY computer off the network this past weekend, and since my landlady was on vacay, i couldn't reset it until she got back. Very frustrating.

But, I bought this to help keep my space better organized. I was so excited about it, that I was inspired to clean my desk. The home office/desk area is never a very clean place, b/c as mail comes in, school papers, etc etc, they just get piled in the "to be filed at some point" piles.

See?



after many hours (including some hours that were spent re-reading books), I had this:



I would like to have my apt clean and tidy before school starts so I can feel as if I'm starting on the right foot. I ended up with a big bag of trash, and a big box of wastepaper to recycle.

Here are some pics of my trip out to San Fran.

Alcatraz from San Francisco. We took a boat tour too, but stupid me didn't charge my camera. It's a very daunting sight, and thinking about the history of the island makes me feel quite solemn.




The requisite picture of Lombard St. It's a CRAZY street, very whimsical. I walked down the side, and that was bad enough. I shudder to think of how many brake pads are ruined by driving down this steep and windy road.



On Monday, the group went on a winery tour. We stopped at a couple places for touristy things too, one of which was Muir Woods. A beautiful park, where you feel very very small.



Another pic of Muir woods, but with people for size reference.



Onto knitting content.
Here's a pic of the progress on the baby surplice jacket by EZ. I'm almost to the point where maybe I can puzzle out how this pattern works. This project is the one that caused my injury b/c it's knit so tightly.


I really think this yarn was meant to be baby stuffs. What was I thinking?



Here, I need your advice.

What do you think? I had 4 skeins of this shade of cotton ease in my stash. Of course, I didn't look at dyelots BEFORE I dived in. And OF COURSE, the ONE skein I randomly pick, is the ONE skein that's not matching in dyelot. GAH!! Is it horrible? Should I rip it out and scour the internets for a matching skein?

"must. touch. the. mommy."

If you're going to SF...

Ok, I'm not one for wearing flowers in my hair, but I was sorely tempted. I loved being in San Francisco, but the travel to and fro was HORRID. For anyone who is thinking of going on a trip, please beware of Spirit Airlines. Yes, it's cheap. OK. But how cheap? The seats BARELY recline, I had difficulty with crossing my legs due to lack of leg space (I'm 5'3), and they will only serve you water. You want a soda? Sure. That's $1. Want a bag of combos? The small ones that hold about 10 combos? That'll be $4. We had a lay over in Detroit, but were asked to stay on the same plane to help speed up the process. My group of travelers (3 others) were hungry, so I jumped off the plane to get us snacks. Good thing, b/c when I got back, we found out we were supposed to PAY for snacks. Plus, my lower back is still in a bit o pain from being so uncomfortable for such long periods of time.

Ok. enough beeyatching. I have some pics of things, and I'll share those later. I did manage to spend a little bit of time with Cristina. She picked me up so we could enjoy some yummy dim sum and catch up. Unfortunately, due to SCHOOL STUFF, I couldn't hang out overly much, and missed out on seeing all the LYS in SF that she wanted to show me. Stupid school. Always getting in the way of me having a life.

Since I'm too tired to deal with photos, I'll do the meme. Stolen from Carrie (who not only shares my first initial, but also the lack of patience).

SCATTERGORIES ... and it's harder than it looks! Here are the rules:
* Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the questions.
* They MUST be real places, names, things ... NOTHING made up!
* If you can't think of anything, skip it.
* You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.
* If your name happens to start with the same letter as mine, sorry, but you can't use my answers!

My name: Cynthia

1. Famous Singer/Band: The Cure
2. Four letter word: C**t. what can I say? I'm crass. I do hate the word though.
3. Street: Canterbury St.
4. Color: Cerulean
5. Gifts/Presents: Cash, cards
6. Vehicle: Cabriolet
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: cards (of the post card variety)
8. Boy Name: Chase
9. Girl Name: Carole
10. Movie Title: Catch Me If You Can
11. Drink: Crush
12. Occupation: Counselor
13. Celebrity: Clay Aiken (oh God. Shoot me)
14. Magazine: Cooking Light
15. U.S. City: Chicago
16. Pro Sports Teams: Canucks (Vancouver)
17. Fruit: Cherries
18. Reason for Being Late for Work: Child is sick
19. Something You Throw Away: cans (soda)
20. Things You Shout: Can it!
21. Cartoon Character: Captain Hook?

Knitting related injury

I have again managed to hurt myself by knitting too much (gasp!) I have not much to report. I realized, in a sudden burst of realization and need for procrastination, that my friend is about 3 months away from giving birth, and I have not knit one. single. thing. I didn't knit when she had her first, but I've got no excuse now. Except for school.

I cast on for the EZ Baby Surplice Jacket (found in the Vogue Spring/Summer 2007 issue) using Trendsetter Taos that i had purchased many moons ago to make Donna. See pic of yarn knit up here. What was I thinking? that I was gonna wear something pastel-y? Much better suited for a baby girl. The yarn is aran weight, but I'm using US5s. That's probably contributing to the injury. Basically, the muscle on the right side of my right hand (along the pinky finger side of my palm) is very very sore. It hurts a little to type and navigate the touchpad of the laptop.

I leave for San Francisco on Wednesday. Hopefully, I'll get to spend some time with Cristina!! I'll be back next week.

Unexpected radio silence

I know most of you are used to me not blogging with any regularity or frequency, but I swear, this time it was NOT MY FAULT.


RIP Dell Latitude D620 #2. 1/16/07-8/4/2007

My hard drive crashed and burned. Apparently, I leave my computer on too long. Hmph.
what's this you ask? here's a snippet of my convo with the computer geeks (I do not use the term geek pejoratively... I like geeks. I am a geek... just not a computer geek)


Me: Any idea what might have caused this?
Geek 1: Do you carry your laptop around while it's still on?
Me: no, I always shut down
Geek 2: What about on standby, do you carry it around on standby?
Me: NO, i turn it all the way off. i shut it down before I carry it anywhere.
Geek 2: oh. Well. how long do you leave your computer on for? at a time?
Me: (silence....) Um... I turn it on when I get up, and turn it off when i go to bed?
Geek 1: Oh.
Geek 2: Oh. um. These laptops are kind of fragile. You probably burned your hard drive.
Me: <-- puzzled look on face? wha?
Geek 2: You should only have your laptop on for 7 hours max, then turn it off for 30min to an hour to let it cool off.
Me: Oh. Okay. (thinking... did they write this in the instruction manual? I mean, dang. who knew?)

When i took a closer look at my computer later, I saw this...



probably not a good sign. I think I have some sort of aura that tells technology to hate me. My first laptop died on the move out here (fine fine, it was 2-3 yrs old), the second got stolen from my apartment, and then the hard drive on the second died. As far as I can discern, the hard drive IS the computer. All the important bits anyway. So, all my pictures are gone gone gone. Sniff.


The day after I found out my computer's hard drive needed replacing, I was futzing around on my desktop, trying to get it connected to the internets, when I glanced over at my alarm clock. 12:00. Eh? It's 5:48pm! Wha? Ra-row. I unplug the clock, plug it back in, try shaking it, tapping it (smacking it with my hand). Nada. It's stuck on 12:00. Effers.

However, I have been extraordinarily productive in the fiber world over the last few days. I finished the fifth section of babette, and have been seaming the pieces together as I go (thanks to advice from Maryse. I've managed to get up to the increase section of Hourglass, and start the heel on my sandal sock.

Babette:

"zzzzzzzzzzzzz.... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... eh? wha?"

"damn. what's a guy gotta do for some shut eye here? SHEESH!"

Here's everything I've got seamed together. I'm working on section VI.



I told Stacey that there was a square that was BRIGHT, but that I liked it. I think the brown edging really helps tone it down though (but I still like it)





I have found that I left my Hourglass in the car, so you get a pic of Madli. She's minus 1 border right now.



Here we have the sandal socks. I have the finished one here too, as proof that i'm not just recycling old pics (b/c I wouldn't put it past me)

Oh! The Places You Will Go

Since the last post, I've been busy with research meetings. Two a days, if you will. 9a-1p, then 1p-5p. I think I'm lucky I only had one three a day (9a-noon, 1-430p, 430p-7p). But I've managed to have some fun too!

On Thursday evening, I met up with a fellow Ravelrer and went to go see the Yarn Harlot. Maybe 'listen' would be a better verb for what I did (I was knitting, ok? sheesh). Stephanie was even funnier than on her blog, and made us look at the muggles in an entirely new way. Whilst there, I met Jess and Casey of Ravelry fame, and a bunch of other Ravelrers. Best of all, I got to see the newest addition to Obsession du Jour's household. SO TINY!!
We decided to hoof it over to a restaurant across the way for drink and food. By the time we got settled and ordered drinks, we got the notice that Julia would be bringing Stephanie in a few minutes. We had to relocate to another restaurant b/c the kitchen was closing at Joe's (it was already 10p). I think I got home right before 1am that night.

Saturday, I treated myself to the IMAX/3D showing of Harry Potter. SO WORTH IT. My date with myself cost me almost $20 b/c the ticket was $11.50 and a small popcorn ($4) and medium soda ($4.50) were a rip. Note to self: no popcorn at IMAX theatre. It's stale. But the movie in 3D was AWESOME!! I'd love to go again just to get better seats (stupid me, going on a saturday!! it was completely sold out and i was at the end of the line.)

Today, I met up with another group of ravelrers for brunch at a local bakery. Good times! Someone ordered a completely scrumptious omelet of spinach, bacon, and brie. She was kind enough to let me have a bite, which just confirmed the fact that she had ordered better than me.

All this fun makes up for the fact that I was up working until 130am last night. And will probably be doing that today too. Don't feel bad, it's my fault for not starting to work until 10p.

ps. Hourglass pics next up. I'm about 7" into the body. Quick quick knit so far! Also making progress on sandal sock #2 and babette.

Camp Never Wanna Go Home

Last we left off, Michelle and Stacey had come to pick me up. First stop? my fave LYS. Yes yes, I know I now live in Boston, which has MANY A YARN STORE. But you can't really beat being able to have yarn held for you at a moment's notice. I needed some addi lace needles (that's my excuse for asking to go) and ended up with the needles, plus two skeins of



which is tagged for a market bag like Michaele has already made. (they're even cuter when stuffed!)

Sufficiently armed/geared up for camp, we went over to Stacey's house so I could see the new furniture, and so we could watch the dancing show (So You Think You Can Dance) to which Stacey and I are absolutely addicted.

Look what I got!!


I've 'met' Mary Kay through Ravelry and heard tons about her through my grrlz. She asked Stacey what my 'colors' were and gave me some of this gorgeous hand dyed sock yarn! Thanks Mary Kay!! I LOVE IT. The kind of love where I might not knit with it b/c I love it too much. Sounds crazy, but I do this with lots of yarn that I love. Just ask any of the grrlz.

We met up with Stacey's mom (hi Marsha!) and sister (hey Whit!) for lunch at a local vietnamese restaurant. We stuffed ourselves FULL and then headed out for camp.

Other people have already documented something or another about our annual Camp Wanna Knit Knit. Stacey just recently posted pics of our fab gift bags this year, put together by... almost all of us. Kim got us started off by finding the cute mini sock blockers, Stacey, Michelle and I cooked up the custom dyed yarn from Adrian at Hello Yarn. What's yarn without some stitch markers from Hide and Sheep? Michelle rounded out the package by ordering some highlighter tape from Knit Foundry. Seriously folks, you gotta see the pics Stacey took of the awesome bags that Carmen made for us!


I managed to finish knitting Reid (which is still in progress b/c I am still finishing it. I've seamed up the seams, but need to crochet the contrasting edging).





I also finished knitting the lace pattern repeats of Madli. I'm a little scared to knit the second lace edging and graft that onto the center part, but I'm SO CLOSE to the end! I will be purchasing some blocking wires, since I want the edges to be nice and straight. I also cast on for the hourglass sweater, using a beautiful color of Noro Cash Iroha. I was cracking myself up while I was at Michelle's house, just before leaving for the airport to come back to Boston. In the project bag I used for the hourglass, I had packed away 9 (yes, NINE) skeins of the yarn. Ambitious? Optimistic? Stupid? yes, yes, and yes.

I'll finish up camp in another post.