One Crazy Fiber Lady

It was a busy week, followed by a long busy weekend and now another very busy week. Not too busy to have a very enjoyable lunch with a good friend today. Ignoring the whole train derailment that had me arriving late to the office, I took a much needed break and later reluctantly went back to the office. We definitely have to do that more often!

Work is definitely nuts. I thankfully don’t have a lack of things to do, which we know is a bad thing, but does interfere with the whole blogging business. I honestly can’t remember the last time I was able to make it through my bloglines subscriptions. I might be going off and learning a new programming language, Java, courtesy of the employer. Nothing is in stone yet, I have a couple of projects to finish up before the decision is made but it does look like I’m going to be spending some time converting applications from one platform to another while rewriting them. Gives me a good chance to clean up alot of the mess that I inherited from my predecessor. Not to mention learning another language is never a bad thing. Still, been a lot of change over the last year that has had me a tad unsettled.

There are some things that are settling down nicely. Other than the custom glass shower doors in the folks’ bathroom, everything else is done. D O N E done. Saturday, mom and I took the monkeys for a trip to Ikea (which isn’t all that much of a trip as the Paramus store is 5 minutes from home) where I needed to buy a throw rug or two, a new dresser and some other doo-dads for the new room.

Sunday, Dad and I went to visit one of my storage units to pick up some much wanted items. Look what came home!

My beloved Lendrum Saxony is back! I missed her terribly. I so totally forgot what a lovely spin she is. You can also see the new red throw rug that I bought for my room. I also got my 27″ tv out of storage, as well as the Tina wheel. Dad surprised me in allowing the Tina to live in the entry foyer as the wood looked good against all the other natural wood in that area of the house. Cool. I was wondering what corner of my room I’d have to tuck it as the two lendrums are already there.

The return of the wheels kicked off a two day spinathon. I FINALLY finished up the Pink Cadillac roving from Crown Mountain that I’ve seemingly been spinning forever. I know it hasn’t been quite that long as I bought it after moving into the house last April, but geez, I can’t remotely remember when I started spinning it. Good news though, after 5 hours of plying, and thank goodness for the Majacraft winder, I now have a massive skein of sockweight. I have no idea of the yardage as I just couldn’t face counting the loops I’m planning on some knee socks with a pair of socks for the girl monkey in the leftover. I really don’t doubt that I have enough in this 8oz skein to accomplish this. Now the question is where in the sock knitting queue does this fall?

I’ll leave you with some kitty zen. This was naptime on Sunday. I quietly spun some lovely blend of corrie/alpaca/angora in a champagne color from Chris while the little ones slept next to me on my bed. Aren’t they cute?

Craft on!

Like so many others out there, today was a snow day at the old CFL household.   We didn’t get a great deal of snow, probably only a couple of inches but the frozen mix made things really messy.  The kids’ school was closed, making the decision to stay home very easy.

It wasn’t a big day off for me though.  In between trying to entertain the monkeys, I worked.  The up side of being a programmer is that I can really work anywhere.  All I need is a computer and an internet connection (both readily available here) and I can be productive.  The down side is that I can work anywhere.  I usually work a longer day at home than at the office as I can start earlier, take shorter breaks and work later.

At least it wasn’t an empty house.  The folks were home and the painters were here for the last day doing Kat’s room.  It is a lovely toned down pink, Princess Pink IIRC with white trim.  Very pretty.  Certainly better than the pepto it was before. 

After dinner last night, we moved Alex’s furniture into his own room.  At bed time, the pair of them insisted that they were both going to sleep in Alex’s bed.  I really didn’t expect any differently, honestly.  After 30 minutes of giggling and playing, compounded with giddiness induced by paint fumes, I moved them out of there.  They both piled into Kat’s bed.  Another 30 minutes later and they are still awake when I hear Kat throwing Alex out of her bed.  I quietly escorted him back to his very own bed and they finally went to sleep an hour late.  Good thing there was that snow day today!  There was a brief attempt at trying to sleep in the same bed this evening which quickly ended as I enticed Kat back her to bed with the "your special pink room".  It worked. 

I managed to get a picture of my room today.  While everything isn’t quite in place yet, and I need window treatments of some kind, I figured a quick glimpse for you all was better than nothing:

BTW, the trunk at the end of my bed is chock full of yarn.  Big surprise I know.  This weekend I will be picking up my Lendrum Saxony wheel from the storage unit and it should be going in my room between that drop leaf table and the rocking chair.  I also need to pick up an area rug of some kind as I found that the rocker has scratched the floor already and it only moved in last night.  I love my room.  I love the sunny yellow walls.  It feels feminine without being girly.

It isn’t all pretty around here tonight though:

I finished knitting the last sleeve for the Humdrum sweater last night.  Tonight I sat down to assemble (not coincidentally my favorite part of knitting) and discovered this.  This would be the raglan sleeve seam.  Anyone else noticing a problem here?  Yeah.  They aren’t the same length.  Both sleeves are the same.  The front and back match as well.  This ain’t going together.  I’m not feeling the love anymore. 

Here’s Humdrum now:

Not to worry.  The yarn won’t be going to waste.  I’m pretty sure it will become the Top-Down-Raglan Cardi from Cosmicpluto.  Kim (a fellow Modern Yarn SnB’er and a brand new blogger that you should all go and give some hellos to!) made this sweater and it is just fab.  I know she used Noro, but while I’d love to, all my Noro is earmarked for a project and I just don’t want to buy new yarn when I have bundles of it that would work.  Heck, I’d get more use out of a cardi than a pullover anyday.  I’ll probably go swatch as soon as this post is done.

And now, some tea and knitting before bed.

Craft on!

I know I posted already today, but I stumbled on this quiz and had to do it.  Is this really me?

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable – even if you don’t love them! You are usually feeling: Logical – you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you live your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

This past Saturday was the big day.  In an exhausting day of schlepping furniture, books, yarn and other necessities of daily life, I moved down the hall to the former master bedroom. 

A little odd if I might say so, though it was different enough with my own furniture and carpet-less floor that I wasn’t totally creeped out being in my parents’ room   The painters started yesterday converting the two tone brown walls into sunny yellow and white for me.  The second coat goes on today, which should bring an end to work in my new room.  Tomorrow, what will be Kat’s room gets a new coat to tone down the pepto-pink (all four walls, ceiling and trim in the same shade!) to something that shouldn’t make the kid sick living there.  There’s pink and then there’s PINK.   Alex’s room is being finished today too.  He got my parents’ old beige carpeting that I ripped in favor of the oak instead of the rose carpet.   Anyway, the end is definitely in sight and I believe this week marks the end of this whole process, which, other than Sara’s foot (fully healed) and her coat (growing back) was pretty much painless.

Needless to say that in the hub-bub that was this weekend, knitting was very much minimal.  That doesn’t mean that there was no knitting.  I still have the train and lunch to contend with.  I finished off the first of the Decadence socks last night during 24.

(Yes, that is my newly yellow wall with the white chair rail, and my Ikea dresser).  I’m using the lace pattern from Hedera on this sock.  I love it.  Kristen at Modern Yarn was knitting a pair of Hedera’s in Lorna’s or maybe Claudia Handpaint (short term memory is rather weak) this past Thursday at the SnB.  It really is a cute pattern and she thought it would look stunning in the solid yarn.  She’s absolutely right.  I cast on for the second sock immediately after finishing this one.  I have a lot of sock yarn to burn through

I might have mentioned a little sock yarn shopping last week.  I was a bit bummed by events at work and what does a girl do when she gets down?  The tough go shopping!  The two skeins at the bottom are Lornas Laces Shepherd Sock in Mineshaft (bottom)and I think Gold Hill.  They were in trade for the second skeins of the Black Purl and the Jeans.  Having discovered I only need one skein, MY was excellent enough to let me swap the second skeins for alternate colorways. 

The others, from left to right are, STR Lightweight in Lucy (which not so coincidentally is the same colors as my late and beloved Baron ), a lovely hand dyed merino sock yarn from fibersnthreads, Chocolate Pink Cherry from Fearless Fibers, and Neopolitan from Yarn Pirate.  Why yes, I spent some time on Etsy.  Nice.  Must knit faster!

Tomorrow is the hop-a-thon at the twins’ school (provided they aren’t snowed out!).  I want to thank everyone for their kind donations.  If anyone was thinking of donating and hadn’t, today is the last day I can take it.  I need to write a check out to send to school with them tomorrow.  As a reminder (and I don’t think I made this very clear in the initial posts), it is a flat donation.  Not a per hop pledge.  No way would I ask that!  Two hyper 3 year olds?  Who could count that! 

Time to go off and code something.

Craft on!

Considering I had only 12 rows to go after yesterday’s lunch, I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I finished the Jeans socks. My first completed socks of 2007.¬† Its a good thing too because I’m just about drowning in sock yarn ¬†I love this colorway and this yarn. Lorna’s is definitely some good stuff.As you can see, I still have a few grams of the original 50g skein left.¬† Blows my mind.¬† Not trusting my knit maths skill any longer, I shan’t even begin to speculate as to how much yarn is remaining, though I really want to say 12g.¬† Sick huh?Finishing these socks means that I needed another commuting project.¬† Decadence.¬† Oy this is yummy yarn.¬† It is the Punte del Este Mericash.¬† OMG.¬† This yarn is to kill for yummy.¬† It is an 80/20 Merino/Cashmere blend that is sooooooo soft.¬† I might never take these finished socks off.¬† I’m using my standard US0 bamboo dpns, toe up over 60st for a change.¬†You can see some subtle variation in the delicious chocolate brown color!¬† I hear this is a DK weight yarn but with the US0, it is working up in a very cushy fabric.¬† Loooooove it.After photographing the¬† socks last night, I went back to work on Humdrum, my home knitting project.¬† I finished off the front piece and am now pretty darn sure I won’t need the extra yarn, which incidentally arrived yesterday.¬† Since I ordered the stuff in good faith utilizing exception 2.c to the KFYS2007, did I fail?¬† Have I broken?¬†Anyway… time to go digging into some code.Craft on!¬†

I got a very pleasant surprise as I was knitting along on the Jeans socks Saturday night.  I was working away on the cuff and saw that the wound cake of yarn still had some substantial size to it.  Would there be enough to knit both of my socks from the same 50g skein of Lorna’s?

Yes ma’am, I can.

The scale is reading 32g after binding off the first sock.  In my excitement I cast on for the second one immediately after taking this picture.  It sat in my purse for a smidge and came out for 24 on Monday.  (Whoa.  Zefram Cochrane killed Dr. Romano!) 

With the arctic blast this week, I’ve chosen to go minimalist in the amount of stuff I’m schlepping to the office.  Opting to only carry what will fit in my purse, I’ve pared the entertainment down to iPod, iPaq, socks and current book.  The sock has been my train and lunch knitting, the book is for the PATH.  As of right now, I just need to do the ribbing and this pair is done.  I now wonder if I can exchange the second skein of yarn for a different colorway.

You’ll notice that the Whisper Rib socks have been yanked from the WIP list.  I just wasn’t feeling the love anymore.  When you’ve lost the loving feeling with the first sock, hardly a good omen that the second one would ever be done.  II decided to cut my losses and frog it.  The wound skein is sitting in the yarn basket for its turn to be a plain pair of socks.

With all the sock patterns I have about, honestly, my favorite socks are the plain knits.  I might give the Black Purl a go with Feather and Fan toe up, but we’ll see when I get there.  I just like plain, basic socks.  The rhythm to knitting them is so relaxing and lends itself perfectly for commute knitting.  The handpainted yarns tend to look better in a plain knit anyway and since I’ve gone hp crazy recently (bored today so I let my mouse do some sock yarn shopping), I see lots of plain socks in my completed items future.

On other fronts, I’m into the raglan shaping on the front of the Humdrum sweater.  I finished the first sleeve Thursday at the SnB.  I must fess up that I might have had a small knits math problem with yarn requirements and might not actually need more skeins to finish the damn thing.  I finished the sleeve and back using less than half the yarn (<5 skeins) with just about enough of the fifth skein to do most of the lower ribbing of the front.  D’OH. 

Saturday, besides being the day I finished the first sock, was moving day for the folks.  The folks, the monkeys and I moved all the stuff from the old master bedroom to the new master bedroom.   Well, almost all of it.  Dad had a mover come in on Sunday to schlep their dressers upstairs.  This frees up the old master and soon to be Mom-of-Twins bedroom.  The carpet was pulled up on Monday (it will be relaid in my current room for Alex’s use.) and the floor guy has spent the last two days sanding and sealing the oak floors.  I opted to skip carpeting and go with the gorgeous hardwood floors that have been hidden for the 35 years we’ve been in the house.  Saturday I move my stuff down the hall into the room.  Sunday the carpet fellow comes back to put the carpet in Alex’s new room.  Monday the painter comes to change the brown/beige walls to yellow/white for me, as well as repainting the twins’ rooms.  Can you believe it is just about done???  I’ll be sure to post final pictures.

In the meantime, here is Sara using the new wider windowsill in my new bedroom.  And yes, we did replace all the windows in the house.  Swapping out the original 1950′s metal frame windows that had cakes of ice on them INSIDE the house during the winter, to these Anderson high RFactor windows.  Made a HUGE difference.  Anyway, having had to do new molding around the windows, Dad suggested going for a wider sill for the cats.  Sara seems to appreciate it. 

Craft on!

Got home "early" and figured I’d share the modeled Celtic Dreams.  I loves this sweater.  I wore it to work today and my lunch buddies who’d seen it in progress complimented.  I gathered a couple of other compliments too.  I must knit more cable-y goodness.  Maybe time for that Gansey finally

Anyhow, here’s the poorly lit iSight shot of me wearing Celtic Dreams.

Oh, i finished the first sleeve for Humdrum tonight and I must say that it is a good thing I found the same dye lot.  No chance in hell that I could finish it with the yarn on hand. 

The foul temptress at MY got me with more sock yarn tonight.  Some absolutely divine Merino/Cashmere blend in a dark chocolate brown color.  I cast on immediately for socks on US0′s, toe up.  I’m calling them my Decadence socks.  I think cable-y or lace-y goodness is going to be called for on the cuffs.  I might have to dig out the Walker books this weekend and figure something appropriate out.  I just had a brainstorm.  Must investigate.

Off to knit a bit before bed.

Craft on!

Here I am, chugging along on the Humdrum sweater.  I finished the back last night and cast on for the first sleeve.   I had the normal concern and general overall fear of NOT HAVING ENOUGH YARN (explains the massive stash somewhat).  The pattern calls for 800 yards and I had 820 in my 10 skeins of the Chunky AL.  Should technically be enough, but…

Except I used over 3 skeins for just the back.  The generic yardage formula is that the back  and fronts use 2/3 of the total yarn with the sleeves utilizing the remaining third.  This is a pretty rough formula, but it is generally close.  With the back taking 3 and a smidge, and the front being a repeat of the back, the body would take 6 and 2 smidges.  I’d have to do the sleeves using less than 1/3 of the remaining yarn. 

This explains casting on for a sleeve before finishing the body.  If I could eek out the back and a sleeve using half the yardage (forgetting entirely the turtleneck), I could get by.  You know where this is going…

This morning on the train, it became apparent to me that the sleeve was in no way going to be done with less than 1.5 skeins of yarn.  No way.  No how.  I need more.  Thank goodness for the clearly stated exception to KFYS2007 ( 2.c. If we are knitting
something and run out of yarn, we may purchase enough to complete the project.) as I really need to exercise that option. 

Allowed to and being able to are completely different animals.  I bought the yarn off a Webs sale a while ago.  I sent an email to them this morning querying whether they had any more in the same dye lot.  No luck. They’re completely out of 004 Night Sky entirely. 

Not to be deterred by that, I let Google do my shopping and starting hitting online presences that advertised Chunky AL in 004 Night Sky in stock.  After sending an email to the first one, I made a call to the second.  With baited breath, I waited as the nice gentleman on the phone read out the dye lot number of the yarn he had.  My heart skipped a beat as he read the numbers I wanted to hear!  Can you believe they had the right lot?!  I can’t.  Personal Threads has come to my rescue. They are shipping out my skeins.  Today. 

Whew.  I should buy a lottery ticket.

Craft on!