One Crazy Fiber Lady

Man was yesterday a bad day.  While I might complain and curse when faced with a difficult techie problem, I become fixated in trying to come up with a solution.  Sometimes so much so that I forget to do things like eat and get up from my desk once in a while.  I did have lunch yesterday after getting a tad dizzy but didn’t get any knitting done, but got through the heel on the train home.  Dinner yesterday was pretty ugly as Alex is starting to melt down shortly before my mother is ready to serve.  It was so ugly that I’d rather have been in the office fighting with Oracle. 

I was so wiped out by the time I got the monkeys to bed that instead of reading emails or anything else computer oriented, I turned off my home machine and pulled out the spinning wheel.  (My lame excuse as to why you haven’t gotten a reply if you’ve sent me an email or left a comment. ) Breaking out the box of BL-Wensleydale pencil roving that I got from Blue Goose Glen.  Since I was too lazy to go off to the bedroom and schlep Tina back to the livingroom, my Lendrum upright was drafted.  The other deciding factor was that I had a laceweight going on Suzie and I didn’t need two wheels with a laceweight.  So what about spinning your own shetland for the ezaspi anniversary shawl plan I had going you ask.  Well, I’ll tell you, I have so much in laceweight yarn that I should use it up first.  So there.  Oh and if you really dig deep, the white shetland I had been spinning was from Blue Goose Glen via Deb so it should be an even swap   Anyway, the BL-W is absolutely divine.  It is sooooo well prepared that the roving just about spins itself.  I’m working up a single that should be a sportweight when finished.  I’m using a skein of Louet sportweight to compare to as I spin.  Its coming out very close to that.  Oh and a sportweight, much heavier than my normal froghair weight, it goes so much more quickly!  In about 90 minutes last night I just about filled the bobbin.

The roving and singles are far whiter than these pictures indicate.  I took the shots without flash on Macro mode.  On regular mode, the flash overwhelmed the fiber and made for a truly meaningless picture. I love this fiber.  Love love love.  You can also see how nicely the woolee winder lays out the singles on the bobbin.  How nice and even is that???  It really is beautious stuff.

As for the second koigu sock?  It is about 2 rounds short of the toe shaping as of the end of lunch today.  While I waited for my batch job to run through its various iterations of debug code and development testing today, I would knit a bit.  Made the waiting easier.  Thanks for bearing with me through the technobabble rant of yesterday.  Today is a far different day than yesterday.  Other than having to fight a little girl toddler into getting dressed, its been a much better day.  The coffeeshop down the block from the train station set up their table at the station giving away free cups of joe.  I love that man.  I got a good seat on the train and could knit without anyone giving me dirty looks.  My Zen Micro shuffled up some seriously good tunes this morning, finally discovering that it had lots of Led Zep to play.  Still have some amusing listening sessions where you get a Guns ‘n Roses followed by Pavaroti followed by U2.  Its a giggle, but I do enjoy the variety.  Best yet, the task that was beating my arse yesterday has finally been completed today.  Oracle isn’t so bad afterall.  You still don’t want to talk to it through Microsoft’s ADO, but a little sweet talking and you eventually get what you want.  I had a wonderful lunch with my new lunch gang at the office.  Its just a good day all around.

Is it strange to be considering putting a knitting project in the bathroom for stolen moments of knitting?  I have knitting just about everywhere else in the house, but there.  I have that Opal Rainforest Fish toddler sock on my nighttable (which I have been working on recently, btw, and will be finishing it tonight), a collection of projects in the living room (Birch and Eris off the top of my head).  Sometimes there’s a sock on the kitchen counter for stolen knitting.  But really, the bathroom would be good "idle" time that could otherwise be filled with knitting.  Am I getting too fiber crazy now? 

Oh geez… I have four days to finish my SLW Contest entry.  It really shouldn’t take me that long to finish it, I only have one thumb to knit and a couple of ends to work in, I just have to sit down and do it.  I’ve also decided that I won’t be posting the finished pictures here until after the contest judging.  Not sure why, but it just seems to me the right thing to do.

Craft on

I’ve just spent the last two days fighting with a database to give up its goods.  I googled until my mouse wouldn’t click no more only to find that the programmer who wrote the stored procedure used a datatype for the return code that isn’t supported by the provider and caused also sorts of useless error messages in my code.  My favorite is "Unspecified Error".  Why thanks Microsoft and/or Oracle.  I really appreciate that sort of extremely helpful feedback.  Can we make the haystack a little larger for me to find the needle??  Buggers.  I finally threw in the towel and accepted the fact that no matter how good a googler I was, I couldn’t overcome the limitations provided by OleDB.  The code has now been rewritten to change that return to something elegantly handled.

Sorry for technobabble interruption from the normal fibery arts / toddler chatter that usually flows around here.   I am a geek by profession (oh and by nature ) and for the last 24 hours or so, frustrations with technology have been the focus of my existence.  Starting with that database hiccup yesterday that deactivated all employee discounts at my company (database upgrade caused this – watch out for them darn upgrades), progressing through fighting with Oracle, to culminate in single-minded focus last night on trying to get my home machine to batch generate emails. 

Technology, gotta love it!

Okay, so I did take a break from fighting with the home machine to cuddle a toddler who had a kvetchy hour from 9;30 to 10:30 last night.  Not entirely sure why, but I would comfort Alex, send him back to bed and he’d sleep for 5 minutes before screaming again.  I had him in my lap in the living room for about a half hour before getting him back in bed at 10:30.  He stayed then and I didn’t hear a peep from him.  I did miss my favorite show though and got no crafty time at all.  S’all right.  I’m back to taking a regular lunch and managed to knit from the cuff to just shy of the heel on the second koigu ML sock yesterday.  By the end of the commute, I was ready to start the increase portion of the heel short rows.  I’ll have that done at lunch today.

I really don’t have much to say today, so I’ll just be brief…

Craft on.

Does it portend well for the Shetland Lace Workshop contest that I’ve down yet another one of my Rosewood US0 DPN’s that I was using to knit the handwarmer?  I finished knitting the hand last night on the train home.  This morning, while packing my bag to get ready to go to work, I saw only 3 needles in the project bag.  Wouldn’t you know it, one of the Rosewoods is gone.  I had to dig up another bamboo 0 to replace it.  Heck, I’ve never lost so many needles of a single set on a single project before!  WTF?  Broken, eaten and now lost.  Oy.  I’m not sure if I should take this as a sign to quit now or as one of those hardships to persevere in order to get a good reward.  Time to hit a store and buy more long-arsed Addi’s, seems dpns and I are on a rocky road together.

I spent last evening again with Suzie and the CVM fleece.  This time three locks kept me highly amused for 90 minutes.  I’m telling you, this fleece is going to last forever.  Not to mention, while I have a drum carder, hand cards and even some lovely Ramer combs, what am I using to prepare the locks?  A $2 cat brush from the supermarket pet aisle.  Who says spinning needs to be an expensive hobby toolwise.  My BL-Wensleydale roving arrived with yesterday’s mail and I might just start it tonight.  Not sure which wheel I’m going to use, though it will be one with a Woolee Winder.  While the Lendrum is purportedly tied up with the shetland, that leaves the Tina 2 and the Womack.  I think I’ll go with Tina for this.  I will need to fetch her from my bedroom where she’s been hiding from the twins.  Not sure if I want to schlep her back and forth every time I want to spin though.

Anyway.. got my flu shot yesterday.  Ouch.  Reading the lists of common side effects, I experienced most of them.

• Tenderness at the injection site
• Mild fever
• Chills
• Mild Headache
• Mild Muscle Aches

Hmm, had them all but the mild fever.  Made for an interesting night.  My arm is still sore where I got the injection, but at least the other symptoms are gone. 

In a technology update, I’m upgrading my ReplayTV.  You might remember back when I bought the thing, that I got the 40 (gig) hour version.  Seems like a lot but it really doesn’t hold that much, especially when recording at a better quality (which i prefer).  I ordered a hard drive and will be upgrading it to a 160gig, quadrupling the storage space that I have.  This way I can hold more than 2 episodes of the evil kid crack, Boohbah, not to mention the purple guy and the furry red menace, yet still be able to hold an episode or two of House, 24 and Battlestar Galactica.  I don’t think I’ll be able to work on this project until the weekend though. 

Oy gotta go.  Looks like one of my jobs had a hiccup and deactivated a number of discount cards.  Sigh.

Craft on.

Its Monday again already.  Wow those weekend are ffffast and fffurious.  There was knitting and spinning, sewing and toddler wrangling all in a relatively small time span.  Lets start with the toddlers now shall we?

They obviously prefer being "nake-y" to just about anything these days.  This was taken Saturday after they both decided that shirts were far too restrictive for their free little spirits.  (You can just see the lendrum saxony and the suzie pro – sans orange wirenut as the replacement piece winged its way from Australia – over the couch arm behind kat).  Yesterday they wandered out of the living room and into their bedroom during free play.  I kept an ear on the baby monitor and when the sound got a little worrisome, a plasticy sound that I didn’t recognize, combined the "the giggle", I quickly went to investigate.  I found this lovable pair jumping around on Kat’s bed, stark naked.  When I asked them where their diapers were, they directed me to the diaper pail.  Hey they get style points for that!  Thank goodness the temperatures have been unseasonably warm so they haven’t caught pneumonia running around in their birthday suits. After finally getting them into clothes, we did take advantage of the wonderful weather to do some serious outside play.  Kat is a big time daredevil and went streaking down the driveway, feet up and grinning ear to ear the whole way.  I took them to a local playground as well and was amazed at how well they did on equipment really meant for older kids.  They grow up so damn fast.

Toddler sleeping time was crafting time.  Friday night I was tired.  Kat had been running a low grade fever Thursday and slept fitfully that night.  I pulled her into bed with me and while she slept better there, it goes really without saying that I didn’t. So Friday night, I climbed into bed early.  About a half hour after I fell asleep, Kat fell out of bed. I got her resettled but now having had what was essentially a power nap, I was wide awake.  I gave up trying to go back to sleep at midnight.  I popped on out to the couch, watched tv and finally made some serious progress on the second of the lace handwarmers.  I vaguely remember starting them Thursday night.  When I finally was able to go to bed at 3AM, I had just past the thumb.  Sadly Sunday morning I found one of my rosewood dpns on the kitchen counter with one tip nibbled off.  I’m going to blame Baron for that, unless there’s some other life form in my house that has a taste for wood, other than Yeti, who’d be the perfect suspect, other than his his whole outside alibi.  It did leave me with 3 functioning rosewood dpns so I had to sub in something else.  I found a bamboo one and used that instead.  Looks a bit odd and the diameters are a tad off, but with the lace, no one will notice.  As of right now, I’m one pattern repeat from finishing the hand.  I’m pretty sure I can make the deadline of the 14th.  Sorry, no pictures as lace really does look like crap in its natural state and the second glove isn’t any different than the first one I showed last week.

Thursday night I finished knitting the first of the teacher scarves and started the second one.  I still need to work in the ends and block it though.  As I mentioned, they are from Rowan Cashsoft, an oh-so-yummy yarn.  I’m using different colors and different Shetland stitch patterns for each one.  The first was New Shell.  The second one is in the Fircone.  I tried the Chequered Acre, but it just didn’t look right in the dark purple color, which strikes me as the outside color of one of them alien eggplants.

Saturday night I spent with my sewing machine.  Alas, still haven’t taken the serger out of the box, but will shortly.  I quickly whipped together Alexander’s blanket as he was really getting too big for the crocheted one Mom made him.  I used the animal paw print multicolored flannel and a bias tape edging to make a basic comforter.  I’m saving the real quilt action for a larger blanket that I’d like to take my time on.  This was down and dirty.  Had some "issues" with the bias tape edging, but caught most of it   It works and the boy is happy with his blanket.  That’s what really matters isn’t it.  I also cut out the pieces to sew myself a lined bag.  Didn’t feel like sewing yesterday so it is still in its pieces state.

What I really felt like doing last night was spinning.  I’m waiting for an order of roving to arrive. Yeah, needed more roving, that’s the ticket.  I bought 2lbs or so of a BL-Wensleydale Pindrafted roving in a pretty white.  I really want to spin my own yarn for a gansey.  Ignore of course I bought that brown BL fleece at MDSW to spin my own yarn for a gansey.  I’m not entirely sure why I thought roving would be better.  Anyway, I also wanted to make some use of the Suzie and the real reason I bought her.  Grease fleece spinning!  I finally opened the box with the gorgeous CVM that I picked up in April.  Yup, I know I suck.  Stash must age properly, right?  Using the trusty cat brush, I flicked a couple of the locks and spun some seriously fine singles.  The fleece is yummy.  Only problem with spinning so fine (which I do love) is that this one fleece is going to last FOREVER! 

The fleece is wonderful variegated from an almost white to a tobacco brown. I’m taking locks pretty randomly. I managed to keep myself amused for 90 minutes with really 6 locks. This fleece is going to last forever at that rate! I really do have to learn to spin thicker. I balanced the penny on the bobbin to give some perspective on the fineness of the singles.  Also, the leader on this bobbin is leftover trimmings from Mondo and is Rowan All Seasons Cotton.  Looks like a chunky compared to the singles. As some folk might now, my short term memory is pretty pathetic.  If it weren’t for blogging I would barely remember what I did yesterday.  In interest of actually being able to find the info on this fleece at some future date, I dug up the specs and the shepherd I bought it from.

• Shepherd:  White Barn Farm
• Name:  Puffy
• Breed:  N.C.W.G.A. REGISTERED CVM – yearling
• Fiber:  4.1lbs / 3+" staple length
• Purchase:  April 2005

I bought another fleece from her in the past, that also sadly sits untouched.  It was Zeus’ 2004 fleece.  Gorgeous. CVM is just a divine fiber. 

If you haven’t already, do wish Deb a belated happy birthday!  Her birthday was yesterday, which coincidentally was my due date for the twins.  They had other plans of course and came 4 weeks early.  Happy b’day Deb!

That’s pretty much all I have for today.  After lunch I’m getting my flu shot at the office.  I just hope I don’t react to it like I did a couple of years ago.  Back then I was running a 102F fever within a few hours and just felt like I’d been hit by a bus.  Last year was an easy year too, no problems.  Fingers crossed.

Craft on!

You know, I might just go out on a limb and declare the Magic Loop a tad faster than the beloved dpn’s for sock knitting.  Behold, the first Koigu sock is done.

I finished the last 8 rounds and grafted the toe after the twins went to bed. I’m gobsmacked at how fast these went.  I know the Opal Rainforest Flamingo went pretty darn fast (5.5 hours or so) this summer while I was riding the bus to and fro work, but this?  This was maybe 5 hours and that included getting comfortable with the Magic Loop and working out a system for sliding them stitches around.  I haven’t cast on yet for the second one.  I picked up the first of the Shetland Scarves for the kids’ teachers and am within a couple of rows of finishing.  I guess I really did need the sock break in order to enjoy the rest of the projects.  I’ll treat myself to the second sock after I finish the scarf. 

Elaine tagged me with a meme:

What is your all time favorite yarn to knit with?

I really don’t have an all time favorite yarn.  I like a lot of yarns for the tasks that I’m using them for.  I have more yarns that I absolutely despise and wouldn’t touch again, but a favorite, ditch all the others for, not so much.  I could be tempted with the Cascade 220, but then I’d be limited by only worsted wear ware.  I love Koigu, but 1 it is a tad expensive and 2 I ain’t knitting sweaters with the stuff.   

Your favorite needles?

Again, this is one of those, I have favorites depending on the fiber, project and mood.  Love me the DPN’s but now the Addi Turbos are rising really fast in the likability scale.   This too is another one where I have stronger dislikes than my likes.  I totally dislike short circular needles.  I dislike straight needles and rarely, read never these days, use them. 

The worst thing you’ve ever knit or crocheted?

Damn, been knitting and crocheting since my mom taught me when I was 8.  That’s a long time and a lot of ugly projects, especially during the taste-impaired 70′s and 80′s.  I vaguely remember crocheting my fair share of granny squares.  Blech.  I did crochet this Chanel inspired jacket in black with a white band in some yarn that was doubled.  It was stiff as a board by the time I finished it and I don’t remember ever wearing it. 

Your most favorite knit or crochet pattern? (maybe you don’t like wearing it…but it was the most fun to knit)

My most favorite pattern has to be the sock pattern I’ve derived from a variety of sources over the years.  It is part the PG-R Hourglass heel that I picked up from Twisted Sisters, the overall mechanics from the Fiber Trends socks in 3 weights pattern and a bit here and there.  It is the standard that I knit when I want the PB&J comfort knitting.

Most valuable knitting technique?

I’m going to quote Elaine’s answer here as I couldn’t agree with it more:

Well, whether it’s a technique or not, I’m saying it’s the ability to read my knitting. Once I learned to read the stitches, I no longer need to be married to a chart for every stitch, I can find errors before a burnt potato becomes a real tragedy, turning cables is common sense and lace is just another yarn over. I can decide if I need a K2tog or a SSK or a K2togB and I even know that the two are one in the SAME.

Best knit book or magazine?

Another tough question. I’d have to say Jackie Fee’s book or one of the Ann Budd books that give you the skeleton and you can flesh them out.

Your favorite knit-a-long?

I’m with Elaine again here in picking the EZasPi group informal knit-a-longs.  It fits my knitting style and the group is just wonderful. 

Your favorite knitblogs?

This is a tough one.  I read and enjoy so many of them.  Just take a look at the bloglines I subscribe to.

Your favorite knitwear designer?

Jenna of GirlFromAuntie with her lovely Rogue, Eris, Big Sack Sweater and Banff.  Or… Bonne Marie of ChicKnits with her wonderful Ribby, Chickami, Lo-Tech, Mondo and Twist to name a few.  Just take a look at my WIPS and FO’s and you’ll be hard pressed to not find a design by either of the two. 

The knit item you wear the most? (how about a picture of it!)

Easy.  Ribby Cardi.  Love it.  I’ve come close to living in it this fall.  It has been my cool weather companion that I will love to death.  I dearly need to make a replacement for it.  The wool is pilling a tad, but then again it does get a significant amount of wear.  Love it.  Love it.

The part I don’t like about these meme’s, the tagging.  I’ll do what I’ve done in the past, consider yourself tagged if you’d like to be tagged! 

Craft on!

Today is a weird kind of day.  While the temperatures in NY are above normal, no complaints out of me on this count, the air outside my office is pretty pathetic.  There’s a fire in a building a half a block down from us.  The story is here.  I’d originally heard it on the news before leaving the house that there was a fire in the parking garage on W15th Street at 9th Avenue.  With that location, it could have been my building!  Fortunately it wasn’t and I made it into the office without issue…

Well not huge issue anyway.  Just running late again.  I’m supposed to be on this train here.  Not today.  I pulled into the parking lot to see it already in the station.  While that shouldn’t be a big deal, Elaine and Nancy know that between the parking lot and the station is a 4 lane highway that has to be crossed.  Not a chance of getting there before the silver bullet pulled on out.  Good-bye NJ Transit Train, Hello NJ Transit bus

I’m out of the funk I had gotten into, rather quickly I must say.  Retail therapy is good for that.  I doubt anyone is surprised that I opted for that path.  One of the benefits of working in NYC is that there are a number of places to go to cure that ill.  During lunch I popped on over to Purl.  I had been debating going to Seaport Yarn, also a quick subway ride from the office.  I’d been wrestling with the two at once socks versus giving in and trying the magic loop technique on one.  Others seem to be pretty big fans of it, so there had to be something that I was missing.  I printed out patterns for both and headed for the door. In the elevator I decided on the Magic Loop and just knew what yarn I wanted.  Koigu.  Its good for whatever ails you.  Purl it was.  I picked up two skeins and a 40" Addi Turbo in US1.  I cast on during the trip back to the office.  While the first couple of rounds weren’t pretty, and had me seriously doubting what others saw in it, I persevered.  By the end of House last night, I had finished the heel.  As of the end of the bus/subway ride to the office, I’m halfway into the foot.  Is the magic loop faster than the beloved DPNs?  The jury is still out.  Though I will concede that it has some serious advantages over the DPN’s.  The first and foremost is nothing more than the snapped Rosewood DPN that I broke taking my shetland wrist warmer out of my purse at Rhinebeck, followed by nearly losing another one from that set on the PATH train.  Winter and DPN’s have always combined to make for difficult knitting for me as the ends of the needles get jammed in my coat sleeves.  And the Koigu I bought?  Gorgeous stuff.  The colors remind me of a Monet painting and the above photo doesn’t do it justice.  That was taken on the hood of my car this morning after watching the train go by.

Kat recently has been invoking in me (and my parents) memories of me at a similar age. I finally was able to dig up the old photo of me and scanned it last night.  I took the picture of Kat this morning.  Pretty darn close if you ask me.  She’s been giving me the same goofy smile on occasion, but I couldn’t get her to do it this morning.  Creepy kid.  Anyway, just wanted to share the mother-daughter comparison.  I enjoyed it. 

On that note, I’m going off to find some drugs to hopefully knock out this headache.  I think its sinuses, but you never know.  Elaine tagged me with a meme which I’ll answer tomorrow.  My serger arrived yesterday so I have another toy to play with.

Craft on!

I’m strenuously fighting a case of startitis.  I’m close to actually finishing a couple of things and honestly, I just don’t seem to enjoy any of them.  I’ve been working on the Shetland Scarf in the Rowan Cashsoft the last couple of train rides.  I don’t have much more to do on the first one and plan to keep knitting it until I run out of yarn.  I certainly don’t need leftover balls cluttering up the place.  Should I be happy about the current state?  Yes, I guess I should.  Problem is that when this one is done, I’ve imposed three more on myself:  teacher holiday gifts and all.  I even tucked a second skein of the yarn into my totebag this morning on the off chance that I finish the first one during commuting (or lunch).

Twist is awfully close too.  Nope, no pictures of that yet, nor is the second sleeve and accompanying side seams done yet either.  I did household yuck last night instead of knitting.  It was necessary, believe me.  I just hate sewing the pieces up.  I guess that’s why I love knitting in the round so much:  no seams.  That is helping me direct my energy towards which of the cabley-goodness type sweaters from the UK that I’d like to make.  I’m leaning towards the Gansey as they are in the round instead of the flat goodness of the Aran.  I did pick up last week a couple of books: 

I think I’ll probably knit the sampler sweater in BB-R’s book.  Hopefully when its done, it will fit one of Kat’s teddy bears.  Bear-Bear currently wears a pretty nasty looking pink satin gown.  Though I doubt I can replace that dress, maybe I can convince her that Bear-Bear is cold and needs the sweater. 

Still, I’m just not motivated to finish up Twist, especially that part about picking up 100+ stitches for each of the button bands and knitting 1.5".  I would like the collar as that is more cable fun, but still, I hate picking up stitches and I have to get past the sewing of the sleeve.  Blech.

I don’t feel like knitting on Birchington, which really hasn’t seen the light of day in a while.  I need to do the second shetland lace wristwarmer, which is really a quick knit but my brain is telling me I have oodles of time to do, but not really.  I’m just blah when it comes to the current WIPS.  I’m oh-so-tempted to just start something else to break out of this feeling.  Last night, had I not been more motivated by sleep, I think I would have started Clapotis finally.  I just might afterall.  That should be a small enough project that I can get it done relatively fast and then get back to the current beasty things.  I’ve spent a good amount of time cruising around the net looking at sweater patterns and yarn.  Goodness knows I don’t need anymore yarn. Hell, I barely need anymore patterns.  I did download the Two-At-Once-Toe-Up pattern for socks from Knitpicks and might give that a go.  Socks v. clapotis?  Hmmmm

Craft on?!