Sue Knits

Hello Again!!

2008-02-07T15:27:00.000-05:00

If you haven't given up on me - which, I have to say, I'd understand if you had...

I am happily mostly-settled here in Philadelphia, and have been keeping extremely busy even without knitting much (sigh...).

I laughed when I saw my last post, talking about quickly running out of furniture. I've just finished furnishing my new apartment, kind of the reverse process from the one I mentioned back in October! Ikea is my friend.

Here's the super-boring view out my kitchen window - if anything was ever asking for a mural or something, this is...

But here's the view from my balcony:

which I actually like a lot - it reminds me a little of Mary Poppins. Also one of the trees you can see is a holly tree!! And there's a cardinal I see a lot. I can't wait until it gets a little warmer (though yesterday was 70 degrees!! but that was weird, everyone says so) and I'm going to grow tomatoes in buckets. :)

Today I went to Chinatown and explored. Some things I found:

New Year money envelopes, for fun. Last night was Chinese New Year and they had dragons and firecrackers and all kinds of fun at midnight. It's in walking distance of my apartment, if I hadn't had an interview today at 10 I so would have gone!! But, this weekend D and I are going to New York, and we may well check out the Chinatown New Year scene there. So it's okay.
Canned Vegetarian Mock Duck - need I say more?
A sesame ball like this one from an Asian Bakery. yummmm
whole water chestnuts! I bought four for 30 cents, and ate two just now. :) They are sweet, unlike their canned counterparts. Very fun.
Scented red paper for making paper roses. Who knew there was a market for those?

a cone of yarn

2007-10-20T13:06:00.000-05:00

My friend K lives in New Hampshire, but was up last weekend (when I was out of town, of course...) and I told her about the sale at the store. She was excited, until she saw that it wasn't opening until 12 on Sunday and she had to head South before that. So she asked me to see if there was anything sort of earth-toned and nice for a shawl.

On Wednesday there wasn't a lot earth-toned left, but there was a lovely cone of a nice rich purple (rowan? I think? it's mislabeled... wool, anyway!) and I picked it up for her. This coincided nicely with the Yarn Harlot's tutorial on washing cone yarn (here and here), so I asked K if she minded me playing a little and she agreed. So, last night after doing lots of moving stuff, I skeined a little bit around my elbow, tied it off, gave it a bath in dish soap and baking soda, and let it dry. And Stephanie is right, it does come out so much softer and fluffier! I really wish my camera was here, I'd totally do a side-by-side comparison. :)

In moving news, I'm quickly running out of furniture!! My bed and desk are going today - my college-student cousin is adopting them. He's from CA but going to school here, and classes started at the usual time this fall, so when he expressed interest in the bed I asked what he'd been doing until now. The answer? "Well I have some couch cushions..." Poor guy, I'm glad the bed came up in conversation!

Update

2007-10-16T07:43:00.000-05:00

All right, all right...
Here's the thing - I have not only been a bad blogger lately, but also a bad knitter!! And now that I'm actually knitting again, my camera is in Philly without me (I forgot it last time I was down there...). But I'll post an update on the life of Sue anyway!

My last day of work here is going to be next Friday, October 26. I've had two in-person interviews and one phone interview for jobs down that way, and I've heard back on one of them (the answer was no - but I didn't like that one that much anyway). I took my couch to a friend in RI last weekend, and my parents came and picked up the table and chairs and coffee table - the result of which is one seriously empty living room!! It still has a tv and a rocking chair, though, so I've been watching movies and knitting more the last few days.

More mittens - along the lines of the neverending mitten from a couple of months ago but easier - I admitted to myself that I would probably never actually make #2, that was one seriously annoying pattern for me! But I'm happy with my plan for these new ones. It's the boku yarn again, and they will still be flip-top, but no fingers and the pattern is a simple mitten one that I've had for a while and made several pairs from. Oh also I'm going to try using short rows to make the top instead of the normal start at the bottom and decrease method. We'll see how it goes, but I was really happy with my short row results when I made the ruby slippers for my sister, and I never really like the top of my mittens.

D is flying up on the evening of the 26th, and we're going to pack as much as we can fit in my car and drive down on the 28th and/or 29th. D told me a few weeks ago that after quitting a job it's important to do something fun, so on the 30th we're flying - together!! - out of Philly and heading to Miami for a week! Cool, no? We want to find a really good tour of the everglades, and spend a couple of days exploring the keys - I'm excited!

What to send

2007-08-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

I heard from D again this morning and he's scheduled for surgery this afternoon and probably will be again in a few days. So the answer on what to send, I think, turns out to be myself. I had tickets to go down for the last half of next week anyway, but I'm changing my departure to this Friday instead. This also means I'm going to end up missing knit night this week, but please say hi to everyone for me!

In knitting-related news, there was an article in the Bangor Daily News today about a LYS in Hancock that's all knitting dolls to send to African AIDS orphans through a nonprofit called Children Affected by HIV-AIDS. An excellent cause, and I went to the website and downloaded a pattern. They look really simple, and also excellent for stash-reduction (lots of colors, and they don't need to match). I expect I'll have lots of knitting time next week, and that seems like a good way to spend it!

D also doesn't get to argue, he's learning to play cribbage, like it or not. ;)

Being Mrs. Cratchit again

2007-08-20T16:50:00.000-05:00

I said the new bag would be blue soon, right? Well here's what it looked like halfway:

sudsy because the dye package said to add a cup of salt and a tablespoon of laundry detergent (which I don't remember doing last time, I wonder if I was following directions carefully?)

and the most useful my pasta drainer has been since I've had it! :)

bad photo (no flash, and it's getting dark earlier now...) but still, look, it's me with a blue bag!

D called this afternoon from the hospital admissions waiting room. Poor guy. A random thing on his foot has turned out to be infected with this. I hate being 500 miles away. Any good ideas for stuff to send?

finished things

2007-08-18T10:47:00.001-05:00

Cake pictures coming soon, I promise! In the meantime, though, check out the latest knitting accomplishments -

ruby slippers for my sister (she was having fun posing!):

and another string bag (it'll be blue soon) - oh and I liked how at the end of the handle it looks a little like a white heart:

A friend has been getting into crocheting dishcloths lately, and asked if I had plans for that spool of cotton. The answer is largely not, although I was going to make one more of the bags, so I've expedited the process and will be able to give her the remainder soon.

D came up for a long weekend last week, and we had a great time. Sunday afternoon's random adventure, which turned out to be gold, was the Rufus Porter Museum in Bridgton, ME. Have you heard of Rufus Porter? We hadn't. But he was a traveling mural-painter (for room and board plus like $1/room, he'd stay with a family for a few weeks and paint murals on their walls), an inventor (he invented, among other things, the revolving rifle, the patent of which he sold to Mr. Colt for $100; also he designed and created a working miniature of what was essentially a blimp - in the 1840s!), and founder of the Scientific American Magazine. There were old issues on the walls, and D and I stayed so long reading them that I think the docents were a little confused... :)

Progress

2007-07-24T08:58:00.000-05:00

So I mentioned earlier that I've been very lazy, knitting-wise. It's true. But I finally managed to finish mitten #1. And before starting #2 I decided a happy, quick and easy project was in order to bring back the joy (and make sure that #2 happens sometime in my lifetime...) So I made a pair of these, and finished them both in no time! However, they don't match. On the first one, I missed the line near the beginning where it says "Rows 3-11: K all sts". Sigh. But they're fast. And I got to learn how to do a provisional cast-on, a cable cast-on, and Left- and Right-Leaning Increases. Not so bad, really!

In non-knitting news... well, I had company for 10 whole days at the beginning of this month, and just got back from a weekend in Philly (traveling was good knitting time!). I had an amusing revelation - I actually do use a train, a plane, and an automobile to get there! Not in that order (from Augusta to Philly, it's automobile, plane, then train) but still it made me laugh. And now that I'm back, yes, there is more cake. I was surprised and happy to discover that a 14" cake would indeed fit in my freezer. :) For the next two weeks, if it's below 80 or so, I bake. The checklist:

14" chocolate - done
12" white - done
10" carrot - done
8" white - later
6" chocolate - later

carrots and carrots and carrots

2007-06-28T20:18:00.001-05:00

75 cupcakes and two cake cakes later...

no progress on the mittens. But it's okay. My house is (relatively) beautiful and I have company coming tomorrow night and I'm way excited! :)

No knitting tonight - but on my way to the shop, I noticed that there is once again ice cream for sale downtown. So when I saw the note on the door, I changed my destination and became a walking advertisement. Almost as soon as I walked away with my cone (it was strawberry ice cream - delicious) a guy stopped me and said "if you tell me where you got that, I know where I'm getting dessert!"

Oh other exciting news today, a coworker and I went for a walk down to the river this morning and saw a really really big fish jump way out of the water! It was very cool. I asked my boss (who is quite a fisherman) what it could have been, and the answer was a sturgeon. I looked them up then, and found out that they're older than dinosaurs. How nifty is that? Here's a quote I found here (the pictures there are exactly right, too, btw)

"But while looking at the rushing and rippling stream, I saw a great fish, some six feet long and thick in proportion, suddenly emerge at whole length, turn a somerset, and then vanish again beneath the water. It was a glistening, yellowish brown, with its fins all spread, and looking very strange and startling darting so life-like from the black water, throwing itself fully into the bright sunshine, and then lost to sight and pursuit."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne, Augusta, Maine, July 1837

Progress!!!

2007-06-18T20:16:00.000-05:00

Look how beautiful it is! :) :) :) I went to to Acadia this weekend with my siblings and parents and a cousin and an aunt and my grandmother, and I was not driving so I got to knit knit knit for lots of hours in the car. Perfect!

Otherwise the days are getting a little cakey. My mom and I are making wedding cakes for July 7 and for August 11. July's is actually a ton of cupcakes and just a little cake, an 8" and a 6" on top of each other. My fingernails are slightly orange from dealing with a lot of carrots haha... the August cake is the more conventional one and will seem like a break, I think. But something cool about the July one, she wants really pale green frosting with white filigree. I think it will be really cool! I love how every cake is an adventure. Much like every knitting project - hmm... I see a theme... :)

Peer Pressure

2007-06-08T06:39:00.000-05:00

Something I forgot to mention in my last post - on the Providence trip, I took a bus to Boston and a train from there to Providence (it comes out just about even money-wise, and I don't have to drive - woohoo!) and on the way home on the bus, I was sitting in a row with another woman beside me, and a couple across the aisle. And by the end of the bus ride, all three of the women in the row were knitting on something! It was great. I hadn't pulled mine out initially (I told you I've been lazy...), but when I saw that I could complete the trifecta as it were, I just had to!!

this close

2007-06-07T16:05:00.000-05:00

My excuse for taking so very very long to post? I don't really have one. Except I've been lazy about both knitting and taking pictures of what I'm knitting haha...

I have, however, very nearly finished the first no-progress mitten (which will have to be renamed in the near future, it seems - hooray!). Today is the day that I conquer the laziness in one department, at least - I didn't want to risk it and put a photo up just now, but I swear, there will be one soon.

In other happy news, I have a new and awesome boyfriend - in Philadelphia!!!!!

And I have spent weekends in the past month in Boston, Providence, and Philly and had an excellent birthday and this weekend I'm meeting you know who in - did you guess? - New York!! The tour of the eastern seaboard continues...

The amazing no-progress mitten

2007-05-11T18:17:00.000-05:00

1, I thought it would be a good Australia travel companion, but at the last minute it decided it would rather stay on my coffee table while I went on the trip. Random thought: why are there not knitting shops in airports? Okay maybe not so random...

2, I thought I could work on it during the first week I was back (and terribly jet-lagged). This was a mistake.

3, I thought I should have been using size 3 needles, when in fact I should have been using size 1. Due to (2) I failed to realize this for quite some time.

4, As a result of the combined effects of (2) and (3), I took it all out and started over. It is now back to where it was before, only better. :)

In other random news, I had a funny coincidence this weekend - I came back from Boston on the bus, and at the station in Portland I was getting a juice from the vending machine when who should come up behind me and say my name, but - are you ready? - my seatmate Ken from the getting back from Australia adventure!!! The world is a very funny place!

Pictures!

2007-04-19T13:56:00.000-05:00

Are available here. But first, two things. 1, don't use the slide show option, because then you'll miss the captions! And 2, I couldn't figure out how to get them out of reverse chronological order, so for best results start at the bottom and work your way up each page. The link will take you to the last page. :)

not for the faint of heart

2007-04-11T22:11:00.000-05:00

Something everyone should know: there are leeches that live on land in Australia. And I feel quite fortunate to have found one myself. :) When my brother told me about them, I thought how it sounds like something that might be found in that scary forest in the Princess Bride, alongside the rodents of unusual size. Don't you think? In all other respects they are exactly like regular leeches. You don't know they're there until you see it or brush up against something or notice the blood on your sock, they come off with salt, and it bleeds like crazy after. The end.

My brother has lived here for four years and never gotten a land leech, and I found one on my fifth day. Pretty good, no?

We told a neighbor about it that afternoon, and he was like "yeah, we try to keep quiet about those..."

Also, nobody here has ever heard of catnip.

New Beautiful Mittens Begun

2007-03-21T16:31:00.000-05:00

Isn't it lovely? :)
The color actually showed up pretty well in this picture, even though the flash messed the wood all up. It's cool eggplant/purple/other colors variegated. I've had almost a whole week and this is all I've gotten done, kind of pathetic but in my defense I had to do a lot of swatching to figure out my guage (turns out I need to use size 3 where the pattern suggests 7 - suspicious? I think so...) and I've been crazy busy with last minute trip stuff.

Once again I should let you know I will not be at knitting this week - but I will next week, I'm sure I'll need a dose of sanity with only two days left before I go at that point! Speaking of which, any good plane knitting ideas? I might bring the mittens, since I'm positive they won't be finished by then, though I don't know what TSA thinks of size 3 metal double-points...

The Possum and Challenge of the Week

2007-03-12T20:37:00.000-05:00

First, the possum:Knit in the round, unlike its older sibling. This worked very well except for stuffing its face (ha!). In case you wonder, the paper bag taped to the bottom of the cupboard is to act as a makeshift lampshade. I also write interesting things on it when I find them. The possum is hiding a poem by Edna St Vincent Millay. For your reading pleasure:

I'm the queen of the dishpan
My subjects abound
I can knock them about
and push them around
and they answer with naught
but a clattering sound
I'm the queen of the dishpan, hooray!

It's above my kitchen sink.

And, look who decided to join the rest of the class!

And last of all, the Challenge of the Week. I've recently volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters, and been assigned a Little. She and I went to the State Museum in Augusta Saturday morning, and had a good time inside. Afterward we went out and looked at the statue of Samantha Smith, and talked about her story. Little was interested, since she is not that much younger than Samantha Smith was when she wrote that first letter. We went back in, to the library this time, to look at a book about her, and again, Little was interested. Impressively so, I thought, since she is only 8. As we were leaving the library, she said "Next time we get together, we should try some Russian food." Hey why not?

But now my work is cut out for me. Can you think of any Russian foods that would appeal to the average eight-year-old? Especially one who calls herself a vegetarian (although I think that if the meat is properly disguised she doesn't have a problem with it - she ordered chicken nuggets for lunch). So far my best idea is pierogies, and maybe some beets for effect. And some good dark bread. But please, if anything else comes to mind, let me know!

News from The Turtle

2007-03-07T20:42:00.000-05:00

When I gave The Turtle to my god-daughter a few weeks ago, it made a positive but brief impression. In her 10-month-old world turtles, even ones with sweaters, can come and go, I guess. There are so many other interesting things to play with - the phone, the microwave, boxes of oatmeal... But I got a phone call from her mother last night, and all of a sudden it seems The Turtle (actually without its sweater haha) has been a pretty constant companion for the past week or so. And get this - she took her first steps last night, with only the turtle firmly in hand!

Here's the promised scarf photo - pretty cool, no? :)

Mitten Trouble

2007-03-04T13:14:00.000-05:00

I lost a mitten today. I have no idea how. I was definitely wearing both on my way into church, and when I put my coat on afterward (still in my pew, mind you) one of them was missing. My neighbor and I looked under, behind, and around the pew, and shook out our coats... nothing. It's gone. Today this isn't a problem, it's a beautiful 39 degrees out! But on Tuesday it's only supposed to get up to 9, and I will want two mittens.

Here's the dilemma. I don't actually like these mittens that much, and I've been meaning to make myself some new and beautiful ones. This could be looked at as a perfect excuse. I'd probably have to get new yarn for them, though. Plus, I only have two days. I can probably manage one matching mitten in that time, and I even have the yarn on hand. I think sensible Sue might win on this one. Sigh.

"Have you seen my brother?"

Oh by the way the scarf is looking great - picture of that coming later!

Block Party

2007-03-03T19:52:00.000-05:00

I'm blocking a scarf, I'm blocking a scarf, I'm blocking a scarf, hey hey hey hey!

It snowed a lot and I got a day off yesterday, so... lots of knitting happened. :)

Here it is in its pre-blocked state:

And close-up (and blurry - ack! sorry!):

I have never actually blocked anything before, so this is interesting to me. I'm also really happy that I finished it today - this is the fourth anniversary of my good friend Laura's death, and she'd taught me to knit the summer before. This scarf is definitely the coolest-looking thing I've ever made, so - this one's for you, Laura!

Other things I did with my snowy weekend:

pumpkin peanut butter soup
granola
vacuuming - and I broke the vacuum; maybe I never have to do it again?
tried a recipe for roasted garbanzo beans with parmesan cheese (the cheese was my very own idea - and it was really good!)
watched The Illusionist and Rocky - I was beginning to feel like the only person on the planet who had never seen the original Rocky movie
read several months of the I Hate to Cook Almanack by Peg Bracken (she's awesome! although you can probably guess that I do not really hate to cook)
tomorrow I need to figure out a use for a bunch of carrots - I'm thinking muffins

Two things

2007-02-28T22:39:00.000-05:00

1. I read a book when I was in junior high or so, called The Endless Steppe. It's an autobiographical story taking place in WWII-era Russia, and among other things to help her family get by, the girl in the book learns to knit. She finds discarded items of clothing, unravels them, and makes sweaters and things to order from the yarn thus acquired. I don't think I'd thought of that book since I learned to knit, but I now have a whole new admiration for her.

2, Is yarn like photocopy paper? You know how it has a right side up and a wrong side up for when you put it in the drawer, but the naked eye can't tell the two apart, and if you take the paper out of the wrapper with the arrows without paying attention, you're toast? One of my little red mice was way twistier and more obnoxious than the others, and I wonder if somehow I wound (and therefore, used) that one wrong end first. Is such a thing possible?

Evil Yarn

2007-02-27T19:37:00.000-05:00

The scarf is a little longer. I'm liking the pattern - after the rough start, it seems to be going well and I've gotten better at keeping track of where I am. There is one mistake I've found that will probably show up more after blocking, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with it.

I cannot, however, say the same for the yarn. My knitting efforts last night were seriously hampered by the fact that instead of the usual two, my skein of yarn turns out to have 14 ends!! Under its normal skein facade, it really looked like this:

If you're thinking "wow she doesn't really know how to wind yarn, does she?" you're absolutely right. I did my best to follow these instructions, but mine don't look as cool as the example - they look like little red mice haha! They do pull from the middle and not tangle, though, so whatever.

I'm also concerned about having enough yarn (even in pieces) for a decent-sized scarf. A scarf a little on the short side is one thing, but one that won't go all the way around one's neck with enough to tie is another. I bought this yarn a really long time ago, too. I guess I'll start carrying around one of the little mice and the label (which, miraculously, I still have) and see what I can do. If I can't find a decent match maybe I'll make it into a bag or something. Although I'm not sure about that, it's not the sturdiest yarn ever. Any ideas? I so don't want to rip it out now!!

Red Scarf

2007-02-25T21:03:00.000-05:00

Here's a scarf I've started this week for a red scarf project that you can read about here. The scarves go to women who are recovering from heart troubles. Both my parents had that kind of trouble a couple of years ago, so it's a cause I care a lot about. I knitted this mostly in the car on the way to and from Massachusetts Friday and Saturday of this week - it would be about five inches longer if I hadn't taken out the first few rows a bunch of times. Hence the yellow lifeline - if I make a mistake now I would never be able to pick up the right stitches a row or two down!! This is my first real lace project - it's a knitty pattern, branching out.

Oh and about the Ebright Azimuth - the picture is really just proof that I'm a geek. It's the highest point in Delaware, at a phenomenal 447.85 feet above sea level! Upon further research, I learned that only Florida's highest point is lower.

Delaware

2007-02-19T21:10:00.001-05:00

Do I need to explain this? I think it speaks for itself.

I went to Delaware this weekend and had a blast! We (my friend Kathy and I) went on a whirlwind tour of the Franklin Institute, Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Reading Terminal Market, Winterthur, and of course the highest point in Delaware. I brought knitting for the plane, but when I took it out to start I realized I'd brought one size 10 needle and one size 7. Sigh.

FYI, I won't be at knitting group this Thursday. But next week, I'll be there!

Snowy Day

2007-02-15T09:14:00.000-05:00

Guess who doesn't have to be at work until 10 today? :)

Three things:

1, Here is the new improved string bag. A 500% improvement in the color scheme, in my opinion. Dying it was exciting! I don't have a washing machine so I had to use the "on the stove" method. I felt like Mrs. Cratchet, stirring laundry over the fire. I sacrificed a wooden spoon to the cause, and my left thumb got hit early on, but otherwise neither I nor my kitchen were blue by the time I was done. Overall a pretty successful game of How Talented is Sue.

2, Here is a bear wearing a lovely pink and purple no hair day hat (size small - but don't worry not that small, it does stretch!). Next to the bear on the couch is all that was left of the skein of fun fur when the hat was finished. I'm a fan of extreme knitting.

3, About the possum. The possum was inspired by William the Hedgehog. However I did not use thick and quick yarn, and I only used one strand of one color of fun fur, and I used smaller needles. The tail was an I-cord of my own design (ha), and the wire was an inspiration. I thought of adding a pouch and a baby or two but then I didn't.

The Answer

2007-02-11T20:10:00.000-05:00

A possum! With wire in its tail so it can hang. I'm proud.

But now that I'm aware of the hats for kids at Boston Children's campaign, I'm on it! Thanks Lisa!

Beautiful Bag

2007-02-10T09:24:00.000-05:00

Here it is, in all its finished glory. No swirling pattern this time, oddly enough. But I did like how the stripes stayed pretty much the same almost all the way up, and then got wider near the top.

And here's a close-up of the "Turkish stitch" that's used in the main part of the bag:

The pattern came from here - I used size 10 needles instead of 13, and I'm not sure if that was enough to make it so different looking? I think I actually like mine better, though, so it's all good. Now for some warm weather so the vegetables can grow and I can buy them at a farmer's market!

This weekend's project involves fun fur. Any guesses? Hint: it's not a hedgehog, quite. :)

Who is Mehetabel

2007-02-08T21:20:00.000-05:00

I was initially slowed down by spelling it Mehitabel. I guess Mehetabel is the more common, who knew? So then to a baby name site. Result: Mehetabel means "God makes happy" in Hebrew, and it's mentioned briefly in the Old Testament. For a context for that I'm off to Biblegateway. Surprise! It's mentioned briefly three times in the Old Testament!

1. Genesis 36:39 When Baal-Hanan son of Acbor died, Hadad succeeded him as king. His city was named Pau, and his wife's name was Mehetabel daughter of Matred, the daughter of Me-Zahab.

This is in a list of kings who reigned in Edom before they had Israelite kings. Don't ask me any more, I don't know. Esau and his descendents are mentioned on both sides of the relevant section of this chapter, and in some random searching it looked like Hadad was the son of Ishmael, but I didn't feel like getting into it. Read into that what you will.

2. 1 Chronicles 1:50 When Baal-Hanan died, Hadad succeeded him as king. His city was named Pau, and his wife's name was Mehetabel daughter of Matred, the daughter of Me-Zahab.

Familiar? Yes. Moving on.

3. Nehemiah 6:10 One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, "Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you."

This looks like a story. So I read a little more. Nehemiah had made himself some enemies by undertaking the rebuilding of Jerusalem's city walls, and Shemaiah was hired by two guys (who would indeed have liked to kill him) to try to get him into a trap by convincing him to hide in the Temple which, as a layman, he wasn't supposed to go in. He didn't buy it, though, don't worry. This mention of Mehetabel intrigues me, like a lot of mentions of women in the Bible intrigue me. If they're mentioned as people's mothers, it makes me think people would have known who they were. Why?!

I couldn't find anything about a Persian princess Mehi[e]tabel except in reference to Archie and Mehitabel. But I did find one page saying that it's "a name which, for some reason, has become associated both with backwoods people and with cows"

Who knows.

All for now. Picture of the finished bag coming soon!

tying shoelaces

2007-02-06T21:58:00.000-05:00

This page just made me feel a lot better. And pretty special, since my way is not on the list. :)

How to find an Antipode

2007-02-03T10:36:00.000-05:00

It's pretty easy. The hardest part is finding your own latitude and longitude. The Lat/Long of Augusta, Maine is approximately 44.4° N, 69.7° W.

Once you have it:

1, Change the N to S (or, if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, the S to N)
2, Subtract the longitude from 180 and change the W to an E (or E to a W when appropriate)

So 44.4° N, 69.7° W becomes 44.4° S, 110.3° E.

And on another subject entirely here's my string bag before I unraveled most of it (don't worry, the resulting mess has since been re-knit). I took a picture because when it was laid flat you could see this cool swirling pattern:

ps Keep the comments coming! Woohoo! :D

Antipode

2007-02-02T12:02:00.000-05:00

Antipode is my word of the day for both yesterday and today. So of course I had to figure out the antipode of where I live. The answer is, a spot in the Southern Ocean. Here's a screenshot from Google Earth (the red dot marks the spot):

I will probably never go there.

Does this relate to knitting, you ask? My answer is, yes it does because it came up in conversation at the knitting circle last night!

2007-02-01T21:03:00.001-05:00

Napkin Rings

2007-01-15T20:59:00.000-05:00

Okay so they don't use up ANY of my yarn, but they were kind of fun and different. This is another knitty pattern, which you can see here.

Knitting with wire was interesting. For the first one, I just knitted from the coil of wire as it came, and things got tangled pretty fast. I was still getting the hang of knitting with the stuff at all, though, and I didn't feel like taking time off from the ring itself to deal with the wire. I made it to the end with no impossible kinks, but before starting the second one I rigged up this clever little contraption, which has the added benefit of being the perfect height for working on the couch! I was really quite proud.

The Mission

2007-01-14T22:30:00.000-05:00

I've decided not to buy new yarn until my current stash is under control (i.e. fits more reasonably into the basket I've assigned it to).

Some of what I have on hand is a little bizarre, so it'll be interesting to find suitable projects for all of them.

Today, though, I started simply with a turtleneck soft-boiled-egg cozy, pattern courtesy of Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick. Who doesn't need one?

Turtle

2007-01-14T22:25:00.000-05:00

I got this pattern here. I've just been introduced to knitty.com and I think I'm addicted now. It doesn't help that the current issue features patterns that "you can knit quick like a bunny" - that's my kind of knitting!

And from the side:

And with his sweater off. Fitting, since I had quite a tropical apartment for a few days there!

A Christmas Stocking with a Rabbit on the Back

2007-01-14T22:20:00.000-05:00

I went to visit Katie one time last winter, and when I got there she was cooking dinner and wearing a great apron. I asked where she got it, and she said her mom made it for her. Then she asked if I'd like her to see if her mom would make one for me too, and I said sure! When the answer came back, it was yes if I'd make her a Christmas stocking. So here it is, front and back:

She actually made me two aprons, and I should confess that while she sent those to me back in February or so, I managed to procrastinate and mail this out on something like December 19. But it did get there on time!