One Crazy Fiber Lady

…go round and round.  The CFL record breaking sock knitting continues apace.

Here’s where I left off after this morning’s commute.  I included the first sock in the picture so you wouldn’t think that I did something so underhanded and show the first sock’s pictures again   I know.  The stripes don’t match.  They’re about 4 rows off of each other.  I’m fine with it.  Really.  I am.  You can see my crafty homemade Star Trek mousepad peeking out from under the socks.  A couple or six years ago I was at a computer show (yeah I go to those as well as Trek Conventions as well as fiber fairs ) and saw blank mousepads.  I remembered the nifty inkjet printer with the iron-on transfer printer paper and went to town.  I wasn’t selling them so I didn’t step all over the mighty Paramount’s franchise rights.  Not like they were selling Voyager mousepads anyway!

…anyway for the first time in a while I did NO knitting after getting the twins down.  I actually fell asleep on the couch watching tv last night.  I was so tired.  Tuesday night I had had trouble falling asleep and then tossed and turned well into the night.  The hobbling around during the day leaves me a bit tired as well.  I plunked down on the couch and after catching NASA’s update on CSPAN (with a side trip to the internet to find out what STS-300 was), I fell asleep in front of Mythbusters. 

Tonight will have minimal non-bus knitting as the monkeys and I are going home.  Two weeks later.  Staples delivered the digital scale I ordered so I can Click’n'Ship the packages that I planned on doing two weeks ago.  I was actually heading for Staples when I missed that step.  So everyone expecting a package from me, including my Secret Pal victim who doesn’t know who the heck I am, will be getting one shortly.  I’ll also finally get a chance to unpack my new Hitchhiker wheel with the two drive ratios!  I’ll have to pack the old one back up and send it back (the little direct drive wheel had a malfunction).  Woo.  Yay me. 

I also hope to do some more stash documentation.  I spent a while yesterday while waiting on something at the office, using Excel and my email stash documenting my yarn stash.  All the yarns blogged about since March, with the exception of some sock yarn and the stuff purchased at Maryland, I have some 22 miles of yarn.  Scary scary thought.  I’m pretty sure I missed some things, like the supplies for the super secret baby gift, not to mention some odd skeins I never blogged.  I don’t have to hide yarn purchases from a SO, but I do from ya’ll

Okay batch job is finished.  Gotta go.

Craft on!

I think I bested my old record for the fastest sock.  I’d have to check my FO album, but cast on to toe grafting in about 5.5 hours (5 commutes + Sunday’s cast on) is what it really boiled down to.  I do have work in the ends, but I finished the first of the Opal socks.

I knit the last stitch on the bus this morning (ugh made me queeeeaaaazzzzzyyyy) and grafted the toe on the subway.  I noticed a woman across from me watching very closely.  Such pressure!  Now I have to futz with the yarn and see if I can match stripes

The ankle is there.  BTW, it is my right ankle which has left me driving impaired.  Mom had me drive from the bus stop to the house last night which went off without too much pain.  Could I manage my normal daily driving of some 6 miles?  Yes.  I don’t think any long road trip is in the near future, but local driving is doable so the twins and I will be moving home tomorrow night after work.  This will allow my folks to at least get in a long weekend away on the boat having canceled their original vacation plans for this week.  While the swelling has gone down a bit, bruising is up, and in odd places too.  The middle three toes are just ugly with blotches of blue, purple and hints of green.  Lovely.  Not.

Not much else to report so I’ll cut it here.

Craft on!

I’m going to say for the record that I now dig riding the bus to work.  Yes it stops and starts.  Alot.  The bus is also subject to the whims of traffic.  Yesterday involved a 25 standstill even before the helix for the Lincoln Tunnel.  Today was clear sailing until halfway through the Tunnel.  There was a backup at the Port Atrocity which had the buses stalled again.  The bus can also make me a touch queasy and I don’t exactly dig that feeling.  Why then, you might ask, do I now dig riding the bus to work.  I’ll show you.

The first Opal Rainforest sock in Flamingo as of the end of this mornings commute.  I had O.N.E. solid hour of knitting this morning on that glorious bus.  I even had the front row passenger side seat for the last three rides.  Makes a huge difference in the queasy feeling at the end of the ride.  Remember I started this sock Sunday night, spent almost no time on it, just established the ribbing on the cuff and stashed it in my bag for the Monday commute.  I had the heel turned and the stitches picked up for the gusset by the end of the ride last night.  With my rather small feet, 6.5" to the beginning of decreases for the toes, I should have this sucker done in no time.  I could get used to this kind of knitting time.

Well the dude I was waiting on finally got back to me with the answer I needed so I can now get to serious work on my project.  Took him long enough, I asked him for input last Wednesday.  I sent a friendly reminder yesterday morning.  Ugh.  Gotta go code.

Craft on!

Thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes!  I’m slowly slogging through all my email and will reply to all though it will take some time. 

I had a fabulous birthday and spent the afternoon sitting on the patio with Birchington.  I reached the point where I’ve started to reduce now.  I took the width to approximately half the 299 stitches of Birch.  I do have a 4 stitch border (3 st st + 1 yo) on both sides of the pattern to ease in the next step.  I’ve been slipping the first stitch of every row, creating a selvage that will be easy to pick up for the borders. 

Friday night we went out to dinner to celebrate.  We did indeed go to the Trackside Grille in Fair Lawn where my baby sister and her fiance met us, coming in from her temporary digs in Allentown.  The closing where she sold the house near me was on Tuesday so it is for real.  She’s happy, I’m happy.  Plus she’s moving to Lancaster county where the fabric hobbies abound and will probably be a good stop point for a MDSW trip.  I had some delicious Cappelini Basilico and a glass of wine.  I shared some very delicious French Onion Soup with Kathryn.  She loves her soups.  My parents ran into a friend at the restaurant, sharing the reason we were there, who then told the owner to be good to me.  He bought me a drink with his compliments.  Took me a minute to figure out what I really wanted with my dessert.  I asked for Frangelico.  Yum.  I had to beat my kids off it.  Don’t tell anyone but I did dip Alex’s pacifier in it to give him a taste.  He rather enjoyed it.   The one dark spot was that Kat melted down around dessert time.  Mom took her out to the car where she watched Barney on the DVD player.  All in all, it was a great day.

Saturday was a gorgeous day.  The stifling humidity and outrageous heat were gone leaving a day that was oh so beautiful.  I again parked my butt in the rocker on the patio with Birchington.  My other sister came up with her youngest son and her mother in law to spend the day and lend a hand.  Her hubby and oldest were on a boy scout camping trip.  We had a lovely day outside swimming, gabbing, eating and enjoying each others company.  The twins had a blast following their almost 5 year old cousin around.  As Birchington is not a good social knitting project, even though I do grok the pattern (thanks Cate for reminding me of that term!), I did need to catch up on the baby project.  While I want the precious prizes for being first on Birchington, there’s a harder deadline for the baby.  I don’t like missing deadlines.  I managed to knit 2 day’s worth of quota on it before running out of yarn.  Mom picked up more from my apartment yesterday when she went to feed the animals.  Since it is a super secret project I can’t post any pictures of it so you’re picture-less for Saturday.  Oh well.

Sunday dawned bright and clear again.  The weather was downright enjoyable and I once again took my perch.  This time with my knitting.  First Birchington and then after Mom returned with some yarn from my place, a camera sock for her brand new Elph identical to mine.  As you can see, I used Sockotta from the stash and have plenty left over.  One problem, I don’t particularly like the yarn.  Anyone want a slightly used skein of sockotta?  There should be more than enough for a pair of woman’s socks as long as you don’t go nuts with the cuff. ( Drop me a comment or email at crazyfiberladyATgmailDOTcom if you’re interested, maybe we can wheel and deal  

While the poor pool heater gave up the ghost yesterday, there was swimming.  The 12 year old girl from next door came over to swim with her friend later in the afternoon.  While Kathryn was taking a nap, Alexander played lifeguard.  He stood there watching the girls in the pool for a very long time.  Amazing for a little bloke who doesn’t stay very still for much.  Perpetual motion is more his bag.  Generally there’s a big grin on his adorable little face.  Goofy boy. 

After dinner, bath and bed, I sat down with some new sock yarn last night to start a good commuting project.  Okay, I have loads of projects on the needles and well, yes, I did need another one.  I have a couple of commuting options open to me and with the ankle unhappy, I wanted the one that forced the least amount of walking.  The Bus.  Even though I’ve been taking the bus more frequently these days, the motion of it still makes me a bit queasy, especially if I’m knitting something that requires a lot of attention.  That knocked Birchington out of the running.  The Super Secret project?  It was getting a bit big to schlep around as a commuter project and I was trying to minimize the amount of schlepping (at least until healed).  Everything else was at home and not at my temporary residence.  That necessitated a new projects, specifically SOCKS!.  I saw a link last week to Simply Socks Yarn Company and the availability of the Rainforest Opal yarns.  Now with all the sock knitting I’ve done over the years I’ve never used Opal, though I’ve wanted to try it.  I ordered a couple of colors:

I have to admit I had a lot of trouble narrowing down to just these and was sorely tempted by quite a few of the colorways. I placed the order on the 20th and the box was at my house on the 23rd.  Good service in my book!  I started with the Flamingo and while I don’t have my favorite sock needles with me, I’m making do with a set of US2 (I’d rather have my 1′s).  The yarn is fabulous.  I think I finally have a favorite sock yarn.  Yes it is a self striper and yes I’ve gone on the record for not being a fan of that type of yarn.  Hey, they sell solids too.  I’m not sure why I went with these, though the Lady Bug does hold a warm place for me as Kathryn’s nickname for her first 5 months was "Bug" and was accessorized with ladybugs.  The socks were a good project for this morning.  A bus broke down in the bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel stopping everything dead.  We sat there for some 30 minutes.  Was I upset.  Au contraire, mon frere.  This knitter was ecstatic to have bonus knitting time!  By the time we arrived at the Port Atrocity (okay Port Authority Bus Terminal) I had started the heel flap.  Zippy socks.

A quick update on the ankle, it still hurts.  Yup.  Tender, swollen, funkily bruised and definitely there.  Also definitely better than it was a few days ago.   My boss is out on vacation this week though I have a project that I need to have completed before his return.  Now if only the feller I’m relying on for some feedback would actually give me the feedback I could work on it.  I don’t like being dependent on others.  Ugh!

Craft on!

Once again thanks to everyone for their well wishes and happy vibes for my ankle.  I’m doing amazingly well with the new brace.  I’m able to get around with a minimal amount of pain.  With the addition of a cast protector, I was able to get into the pool last night too!  The best of all, I was able to get to my child, who had fallen and was injured to pick her up and comfort her.  The past week of being unable to pick up a monkey while balancing on crutches was just too frustrating for this klutz.

I spent the morning fighting with my laptop to get it to connect to the network.  My old card just would see the LAN and while mom had a new one, my laptop is a base model from the office with no floppy or cd drive.  Nice huh?  How to get a driver on there.  Nice trick.  Well after 2 hours of fighting, I managed to get a connection with the old card long enough to download a driver.  I’m on using the new card now.  I was unsuccessful over the last 2 hours in trying to establish a connection with the office.  Computers sometimes suck.  I give.  At least today was supposed to be over at 1 and I’ll probably be going to the office on Monday.  Should be a fun commute.

As Deb so nicely pointed  out, today is indeed my birthday.  While some people have trouble with the 0 birthdays, I have a harder time with the 9′s.  This is one of those.  My last birthday in the 30′s   I’m going to take the day off and spend it with my folks, the twins, and this:

my double dog dare shawl, aka Birchington, on her ebony needles.  I took her outside for a quick photo in the dappled sunlight on the folks patio. After an afternoon of sun and fun, we’ll be going out for dinner to one of my favorite restaurants.  It has great food, a wonderful casual atmosphere and best yet, it is family friendly.  If you’re ever in Fair Lawn, NJ, you need to visit the Trackside Grille.  We’ve had the twins there at all stages from tiny infant to present.

Have a great weekend.

Craft on.

I thank everyone for their well wishes and healing vibes.  They were very much appreciated and warmed my heart.  I had my followup with the orthopedist and its pretty good news.  He took more x-rays and there are no breaks at all in the anke.  Yay me. It is a severe sprain, grade 2 as the tendons aren’t ruptured.  Again Yay me.  He gave a script for an anti-inflamatory to reduce the swelling in the ankle.  He also had me change from the aircast that the hospital put on for a MacDavid (Swedo) brace and told me to lose the crutches.  YAY.  I’m weight bearing again!  Okay so its really stiff and sore but its so nice to be "walking" again.  The monkeys and I will probably stay with my folks through the weekend and head home after we see how I do.  Ahhhhh.  I’ll spare you pictures of the now greening bruises on my foot

Other good news, Alexander’s diaper rash is clearing up and Kat’s fever has broken. The daycare center has agreed to take them extra hours to ease the burden on mom and I during my recovery.  They are so nice there and for some odd reason, the monkeys are the stars.  I don’t get even a moment’s hesitation when I ask if they could take them an extra day.  A bit of a relief.

I’ve even been knitting.  Okay so nowhere near the quota level that I set last week, but I have been making progress.  My ebony needles arrived from  WEBS and while waiting at the doctor’s office this morning I switched to them for Birchington.  Cate was right, they are nice needles!  I managed to get three rows done while in the waiting room.  By my estimates, I’m probably one or two pattern repeats away from starting to reduce rather than increase. 

All in all, I think things are looking up!

Craft on.

I didn’t make my quotas on the baby gift this weekend. I do have a good excuse though. Friday afternoon on the way home from work, mind planning my bonus afternoon thanks to summer hours at the office, I missed a step in the long flight down from the train station near my home. I immediately went down, clutching my right ankle. A few fellow commuters and all around good people stopped and helped me. One called the police, another went running for ice at a local store and then put her hat on my head to protect from the blazing sun. A wait of 45 minutes on the hard concrete and an ambulance arrived to take me to the hospital. The PA who checked me out initially ordered X-rays which thankfully didn’t reveal the three different breaks that the physical exam possibly indicated. They gave me an aircast, a quick lesson on crutches and ordered a follow up with an orthopaedist in a week for my badly sprained ankle. I’m non-weight bearing and hobbling around on the crutches. I have an appt with ortho tomorrow at 11:15, a doc that most of my family has been to at one point or another (dad for his broken ankle, ex-hubby with his broken hip) so I trust him. I had a minor crutch accident on the front steps on Monday, instintively put my foot down and nearly crawled out of my skin with the pain in the foot and the middle of my lower leg. Swell. Half a percocet later, some ice and a nap and I was better.

Crutches and toddlers just don’t mix well. Fortunately, I have the coolest folks in the world who without a thought cancelled their vacation plans (they were supposed to take their boat up to Lake Champlain starting this Friday for a 9 day trip) and had the monkeys and I move in. They’ve been a great help in caring for the twins. To add to the fun, Kat has been running a fever on and off for the last couple of days and now Alex has a pretty bad diaper rash. It has been an interesting weekend. As a good blogger, I did take a picture of my bruised and swollen foot while I sat in the wheelchair at the hospital waiting for the X-Ray results, but unfortunately, I’m on my work laptop and can’t upload the photos yet. I’ll give an update tomorrow after the dr’s appointment. It’s always something isn’t it.

So that’s my tale of woe and why I haven’t been knitting. I’m so worn out from trying to deal with the twins, work from home, crutching around and the discomfort in the foot that I’ve fallen way behind in my quota. I did knit in the hopsital though and managed some 1000 stitches while waiting (oh and before the percocet took me away). So no grocery shopping. No visit to the pool. No going to the post office and getting the packages off to Laurie, Katy, Cate and my secret pal. Not to mention, Deb and I won’t be checking out Nonna’s Yarn Cafe this coming weekend as we’d planned.

Feh.

Craft on.

Thanks again to everyone for their well wishes regarding the state of my head, which is pretty much back to normal today.  Good thing as there is a weekend a few hours away.  I’m out of the office at 1pm today.  Have to love summer hours, except for giving up my lunch all week that is.  Without the dark we couldn’t see the light, right?

Anyway, I happily made yesterday’s gift knitting quota.  Because I’m such a geek, I had to calculate what quota really meant.  Nancy isn’t at all surprised at this revelation?  Some quick work with the calculator and I can reveal that my daily quota is 3,850 stitches.  I was able to do some 1100 stitches on my commute in this morning, so I’m well on the way to today’s quota.  I’m very content with the pattern and how the project is coming out.  I do so love having milemarkers to reach for, so I guess I’m not entirely about the process.  I am by nature a task oriented person and am not happier than when I can check something off a list as being done.

I’m just about done with the project at work, and with an hour or so work today can check that beast off as well.  Next week will bring a new task.  I like variety, though I doubt that came as a surprise.

This weekend?  Well first I have more quota knitting to do.  I have to do the grocery shopping tonight and pick that up tomorrow.  I have an appointment for a haircut (trim) tomorrow.  My baby sister (okay she’s going to be 35 in September) is moving out of the area this weekend and is holding a remainder sale.  I promised to come by to help/socialize.  While I’m happy that she’s met someone who makes her happy, and that she’s building a far larger house.  I’m not entirely enthoused that that house is several hours away in Pennsylvania.  Right now, she lives a couple of miles away.  Hours?    I have all sorts of household things to do and I would like to get some of the new fleeces washed, though there is threatening rain in the forecast all weekend.  I would dearly love some spinning time as well.  I can’t remember the last time I sat down at a wheel, or even held a spindle.  I nearly spun last night, but decided to knit a few more rows as I watched the disappointing end of the Yankees/Red Socks game.  I need to get my secret pal gift out on the mail.  I’ve had the dickens of a time compiling a gift for my pal.  She has been a very sporadic poster and even then, mentioning music and current events more than yarn preferences.  How rude   I finally have the first gift ready to go and will  hit the post office this afternoon before picking up the monkeys from daycare.

Since I’ve no knitting/spinning/fiber pictures to post with most of the crafting energy going towards the super secret, I was digging through the archive looking for pictures.  I’m continuously amazed at how much changes as little ones grow.  I enjoy the screen saver on my computer at home as it randomly displays images from my hard drive.  My favorite pictures are the ones that show the monkeys a year ago.  In that vein, here are shots just about a year ago.  Compared with this year’s pool pictures and I’m instantly reminded of how much has changed in twelve months.

Have a great weekend all.

Craft on.

Thanks to everyone for their comments regarding my horrible headache.  Unfortunately it has been a multi-day affair.  It was so bad yesterday that after taking the twins to daycare, I came home, took some painkillers and curled up on the couch.  While still a dull throb, it is much better today.  While there was a point in my life where I had a headache every day, and let me tell you that was absolutely no fun, I can mostly function with them.  While I was pregnant, they disappeared.  Thank goodness as being pregnant I was limited in what I could take.  It seems that my respite from a regular headache seems to be ending though.  I’ve seen many a doctor about the problem and have just come to accept them.  They aren’t debilitating enough that I want to take a regular medication for them as the last neurologist prescribed.  No thanks.

On the good side, lazing around with no short people about did give me some knitting time.  While you’ve seen me flit from one project to another, I’ve had multiple starts and stops on the secret gift project for Marina that have occurred behind the scenes.   I’ve finally struck on the right project and have actually been making some decent headway on it.  Since time isn’t standing still on this and well there is pretty much a deadline, I’ve set a quota for daily production that will have the knitting finished within 14 days.  Finally assembly and end hiding will add another day or so.  I’m using the same yarn that was purchased for the previous iterations so there’s been no affect on stash.  Laying on the couch, I was able to do two days worth of quota knitting.  My hands were a bit tingly by the time I was finished so I moved on to another project..

I finally knit the collar for Trellis.  I did make one pattern modification to this.  Instead of knitting the collar and then sewing to the neck edge after grafting the second side, I attached as I went.  I picked up one stitch every other row until the 11 in the pattern and then subsequent rows, I would slip that last stitch, pick up one and then pass the slipped stitch over.  I continued to the middle back, put those stitches back on the holder and did the second side to the same spot.  Then I kitchnered the two together.  Done.  No sewing.  Yay.  It lays nice and flat and is a far neater seam-line than my sewing would have made for.  Now I just have to sew the sleeves and side seams.  I’ve picked out buttons from the collection and will be able to call this little guy done soon.  It will then be winging its way off to New Orleans for my impending nephew.

Having gotten tired of working with cottons, I pulled out Birchington and finished another pattern repeat.  I’m getting very close to the point where I’ll turn around and start reducing for the second half of the square.  Birch has some 299 stitches at its widest, I figure that around the 150 mark would be a good spot.  I don’t want what Elaine calls Shawzilla at the end of it.  I ain’t that big.  At last count, I had 119 stitches, so 3 more repeats and I’ll be there.  I got the shipping notification that my order from WEBS left yesterday so I expect to have that soon.  I wouldn’t think that UPS ground takes all that long from Mass to NJ.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see it tomorrow.   In the meantime, I switched from the Addi Turbos to some Clover bamboos that I had about the house.  The knitting is easier and I’m not picking up stitches that have accidentally slid off, but I’m having more issues in pushing the stitches onto the needle.  Hopefully the ebony ones will be the answer.  Still looking for the perfect needles.  Aren’t we all though.

Craft on.

I had to post the results from this quiz.  I nearly snorted my soup when I hit the last paragraph as to what careers not to go into.  Glad I’m still paying off my law school loans   I do feel vindicated in my jump from that career to programming though.  I need to show this to my dad who still shakes his head.

Your Career Type: Investigative

You are precise, scientific, and intellectual. Your talents lie in understanding and solving math and science problems. You would make an excellent: Architect – Biologist – Chemist Dentist – Electrical Technician – Mathematician Medical Technician – Meteorologist – Pharmacist Physician – Surveyor – Veterinarian The worst career options for your are enterprising careers, like lawyer or real estate agent.