redhedlvr2

There's something about this time of year that makes me want to knit.  I'm not making Christmas gifts for anyone, although I rarely make anything for myself except socks.  So I can't figure out what it is that makes me go yarn-happy.  This week, it's this sweater.  And you know what?  I'm gonna make and keep it for myself.  The only problem, it's really so far above my skill level that saying I'll make it and actually making it happen are two different things.  But I can dream.

The Blankie is on hold.  We all knew it was just too good to last anyway.

Now I'm working on this shawl  for Daughter-Type.  I have thoughts of giving it to her for Christmas, but I'm not sure which year that will be, lol.  I'm intrigued by the construction.  It starts off by casing just one stitch and doing a yarn over increase at the right edge every other row making the triangle you see in the picture.  The decreases are done in a similar manner.  Then you turn the work, and pick up all those yarn overs to start the lace pattern.  If I wasn't so caught up in WoW right now, I'd have that triangle and all the pick up stitches going, but I gotta be me, right?

I'll post a picture once I have something more exciting than the garter stitch triangle going.

My Season 7 dvds came in the mail yesterday.  I usually don't like beards, but Thomas Gibson is HOT!! with a beard.  OMFG!!!

That's all, please return to your regular activities now.

Heh, never was much of a soap fan, anyway.

Eldest Daughter was up for a two week visit last month.  It was great except I had the head cold from hell the first week, so we didn't do much except watch dvds and knit.  My "knitting" consisted mostly me holding the work in my lap and nodding off, then waking up with a stiff neck, but, to each their own.



( Diablo III )

( Mass Effect 2 )

In the meantime, my WoW and SWTOR toons are getting an extended rest.  My guild from WoW (Daughter-Type's friends) haven't been playing any of the games we started together, so I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.  I know things will change once all the new patches and expansions hit and that gives me something to look forward to when they do.

...with the sweet spot afghan.  Out of all that yarn I bought only two skeins were striping the way they were supposed to.  So instead, I have started my other sock yarn afghan project.

Here is square number one.
( Out of focus photos. Beware! )

I will say one thing though, this thing is addictive.  It takes me about 45 minutes to knit one square (because I am slow, or have a really good show on or perhaps its nap time?) but so far it has held my interest.  I mean, there's a strong chance I'll finish this thing in the relative near future!

I've spent the last week knitting my wee knitterly fingers to the bone it seems.  And although I'm going to chalk this past week up to progress, I do have to say I have nothing to show for my efforts.  It has become obvious to me that HALF of the sock yarn I bought last week will not produce the incredible stacking and pooling effects that this afghan requires.

To be more specific, I started with this yarn.  The colors in this pic aren't true at all.  I find the yarn itself to be very pretty and will save for another SOCK yarn afghan I've been seeing around.  But for this project, it's just not working out.  And on the subject, tell me, what kind of masochist knits an afghan out of sock yarn anyway?

Here's the lowdown.  With a #2 needle, I cast on 64 stitches and worked the pattern, which is extremely easy and the swatch worked up quickly.  It did become apparent after about an inch that the desired pattern wasn't working so, as per the directions, I first increased by two stitches, knit for another inch, increased two more, knit for an inch.  Nadda.  I frogged the whole thing and repeated with a #1 needle.  Still no joy.  At that point, I ripped the whole thing out again and cast on with only 54 stitches, wash, rinse repeat as above.

My conclusion is this.  Sock yarn that will produce a "wider" solid stripe with jacquard patterning will not work.  It is possible that I have not hit the sweet spot, but I believe the nature of that thicker/wider stripe won't allow for the zig-zagging pattern that was intended.

Did I mention that I don't own any straight knitting needles other than double points?  Have I also mentioned that 64 stitches is too long to hold safely on a double point without some stitches falling off the back side?  My solution?  I rooted around in the kitchen junk drawer searching for a rubber band I could cut in half and wrap around the needles as sort of a point protector.  No rubber bands were in the drawer but there was an unopened pair of squishy ear plugs that I jammed onto the ends and have worked quite well.

The things we do for our craft, right?

I sent this from my phone to my yahoo email because for some reason I couldn't get it to go to my gmail email.  See what I mean?

Someone please stop me!  I'm fascinated by this design.  But I know what will happen because it always happens whenever I start an afghan.  Nothing.  The thing would never get finished.  The colors and designs are calling to me though...

Daughter-Type called me at work today to ask for help with her Psych 101 homework.  She needed to list several memorable things that had occurred (current event stuff) during her ages 1 - 12.  My immediate reaction was, how do I know what you remember? but then the brain cells kicked in and I started to recall things that happened during that time that were memorable to me that she might remember.  This started me thinking about what was big news when I was that age and I came up with this list.  Mind you, I have the whole '60s decade to pull from, so it's almost like cheating.

The Cuban Missile Crisis
Two Kennedys were assassinated
Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated
THE VIETNAM WAR
Apollo 1 disaster
Apollo moon landing
Woodstock
The Civil Rights Movement
Womens' Rights Movement
Kent State Massacre
James Bond hit the screen
The Beatles broke up

There was lots of unpleasantness in the world at that time.

So, life has gotten hectic in the extreme.  Which is good and bad.  Let me just jump in and list out everything going on.  Perhaps a wee bit of a rant as well.  It's been a while, yanno?

First, my AP clerk of ten years has retired!  We're really well suited to each other, I thought.  We're both a bit odd and can be cranky.  But we have always respected each other's moods.  We have similar slightly skewed senses of humor.  And we both knit.  Now she's gone.  And I miss her.  Not that I didn't know this day was coming.  The woman just turned 74 this year, God love her and hope I'm as lively as she at that age.  Anyway, and this is where the hectic part comes in, I've been scrambling to get her job split up between me and our floater accounting clerk.  And that has meant training in addition to having to relearn tasks I haven't done in ten years.  Good times indeed.

Then there's the new accounting system we're getting here at work.  Hahahahahaha!!  Just had to get that out of the way.  New Boss swears by it.  It will make our lives so much easier.  It will bring us into the current century, current decade will have to wait another ten years.  We'll all be so happy to have it and will bow down and kiss his feet for bringing...ah who cares!  It's gonna suck and no matter what he tells me, I'm not going to like it.  Shades of his wonder payroll system (ADP) come to mind. 

Anyway, we've all had to endure HOURS, DAYS even, of training on this thing and have been ENCOURAGED to practice in our copious amounts of spare time.  New Boss and our VP (who is our IT guy) have been joined at the hip behind closed doors so much they've generated amusing rumors, and have sweated blood and tears for this thing.  We were supposed to flip the switch this past Monday.  On Friday the sales manager (big baby) goes to the president and says he hasn't had any training and his sales team doesn't know how to use the new system.  Can you guess what the reaction was?  I'm still chuckling about it.  But mad too because if it had been anyone else, they'd have been out the door so fast their heads would spin.  So, launch has been delayed.  OMG!

Another casualty of the delayed launch is the Bromace between New Boss and VP.  VP is a very nosy guy.  He apparently was reading New Boss's emails over his shoulder this morning and pissed New Boss off.  Ahh well, you know what they say about relationships formed under extreme conditions.  Hee he