One Crazy Fiber Lady

It appears the little derailment in Ballerina I had yesterday was short term. Much like this one that futzed up my train line. Fortunately the derailment was beyond my station so my actual commute wasn’t really affected.¬† They were stopping trains east of the problem and busing folks west where they’d take another train.¬† Yuck.¬† NJTransit spammed my text alert system with multiple notifications of the situation. Nice that it works! Didn’t get the stupid messages when I had the Mogul on Sprint. So far AT&T is stellar not to mention the iPhone itself is worlds cooler Made even cooler when I found eReader available for it in the AppStore for free. I’ve been an eReader user for years now and installed that free sucker without hesitation. Downloaded a few books from my library and I’m rarin’ to go. LOVE IT. Anyway… Ballerina is back on track now too:

You can see the raglan “seam” shaping up nicely. Upon closer look, I’m awfully close to finishing this sleeve business and getting on with the back:

The eagle eyed might notice that the stitch count doesn’t match again between the top and bottom needles.¬† Well, there’s a good reason for that.¬† I changed my mind about the whole three-needle bind off.¬† I was doing it right but examined the resulting seam after a couple of reductions.¬† I didn’t like it.¬† I moved to the bind off as called for in the pattern.¬† What do I plan to do with the other side?¬† Take a length of the yarn, splice it to the end where I cast on those stitches and simply bind them off.¬† I’ll sew the remaining seam and should be able to clean up the weirdness.

Is everyone bored of this sweater by now?¬† Are ya’ll hoping I’ll move onto some more interesting yet faster project soon?¬† Just so many ways for me to show acres of garter stitch on 3mm needles.

Anyway…

Craft on!

Oh yes, we have serious trouble. I made a boo-boo with Ballerina. Yesterday afternoon while the twins (and their grandfather) took a nap in the backyard, I moved me and my laptop back inside to watch the Sox. I pulled out Ballerina to work on as I watched the game. I hit the point where the edges of the sleeves were to be bound off in stages, about 2 stitches ever ridge. Good right? Yes. Making progress.

This morning on the train I did a basic count to see how many more repeats I was in for and did some counting. There were different numbers of stitches. Frak. I spent the remaining ride trying to figure out where the heck I’d gone wrong. Just as the train was pulling into the station it struck me. I don’t do the three-needle bind off very often and had screwed up the process at the beginning of each row.

What was going on was that I was knitting together three stitches from each needle to bind off the two, but then on the next ridge, repeating it. But since the third stitch from the previous ridge, which was now the first live stitch was bound off with one from the back needle, I was really reducing an extra back stitch for each ridge. Doh. I started tinking it, but that’s alot of knitting with small needles and grabby shetland. I couldn’t just frog it because the other side of the sleeve is a provisional cast on. While it is grabby shetland, with the way my luck is running, the whole sleeve was unravel bottom up, not to mention it is harder to find those freakin stitches. Soooo…I went back to the first occurence of stupidity and picked up each stitch in that row. I spent the ferry ride on the active side and will hit the other side on the way home.

(click to biggify)

Oh well. Thought I was further along that that

Now for some monumental news of a good type rather than a brain dead knitter type, the twins learned to swim!! Last summer I paid for swimming lessons through the Y where a teacher came to the house and tried to give them lessons in our pool. Most days Kat wouldn’t even get in the water with her. Call it a waste of yarn money. This summer, I opted to skip that (with the ‘rents blessing) and dad has taken to given them basic swimming lessons himself, first getting them to blow bubbles and all that. This weekend there was significant in that they went from jumping into the pool with tubes on and just putting their mouths into the water to blow bubbles to really swimming. Donning goggles, Alex swam from the steps to the ladder. Really swimming. A few hours later, Kat did it too. AWESOME! I watched them jump off the edge of the pool and swim to the stairs. While they need to learn at some point to turn their heads to breath but this is a huge milestone. THEY CAN SWIM!!!!! When they are ready to do something, they really do it. Bravo my babies.

Craft on!

Howdy from chez cfl on a beautiful sunny Sunday. Pop has the kids in the pool. For the moment I am sitting on the patio with my newly Leopard upgraded MacBook and a book (Programming in Objective-C). All is right with the world, though I haven’t knitted since Friday on the train. I didn’t say it was perfect

Craft on!

I had a very shaky time upgrading my wordpress installation to 2.6 finally. I used the automatic update plugin and right after updating the database (always a time to hold one’s breath) it logged me out and I couldn’t log back in. I had to use the “reset password” option a number of times before it finally worked. Ugh. It appears to be back now. Let me know if you find anything funky…

Brought to you by a rite of summer!

Craft on!

…resistance is futile. I could withstand it no longer. All the futzing around with different phones was because I really wanted one of these:

I could fight it no longer. I just got back to the office after waiting in line here. I picked up the 16g black sweet heart. Anyone who remembers the fight I had a while ago porting my number from T-Mobile to Sprint (and yes there will be hell to pay at Sprint for breaking my contract early) will be happy to know that while it took over a week then, it was done in no more than 5 minutes this time. Totally amazing.

No real pictures to show of knitting or spinning. Last night I didn’t touch the wheel but played two games of spring training baseball in MLB the show while listening to the Sox beat up on the Royals. I spent a good bit of the ride home yesterday trying to web browse on my tiny little screen on the Katana phone (eBay bound) to get more than a row done. I didn’t fare too much better this morning though I did manage to complete 3 ridges of the solid blue on Ballerina. I’ll be knitting more tonight. Promise. It is SnB night afterall

Live long and prosper \\//_

edited to add:¬† I had a pretty decent experience waiting on the line.¬† When I jumped on, was given my choice of which one I wanted, they told me it was @2.5 hour wait from there.¬† Turned out to be only 1.5 or so but it went fast and was pretty darn enjoyable.¬† I made friends with the guys ahead of me.¬† It was sunny and hot as we turned the corner.¬† The store folks were passing out these big umbrellas so that we could shade ourselves and well, not pass out on their property.¬† One of the two guys volunteered to hold an umbrella for me.¬† Very nice.¬† The feller in front of him picked up the tab for a couple of bottles of water from the hot dog cart guy and the three of us had an enjoyable wait.¬† Who said New Yorkers aren’t nice?!?

I didn’t get as much done last night as I wanted to. First, I’m just working later. We had a new CEO join the company who has questioned my boss as to what hours the development team works. As a result, we’ve been requested to at least be in the office for core business hours: 9-6. I’d been leaving a smidge before 5:30 so as to catch a 6:01 train and get home somewhere around 6:45 so that I could have dinner with the kids. Now I’m leaving a smidge before 6 and on a 6:34 train, not walking in the door until 7:15 or so. With the twins going to bed around 8:15, they can’t exactly hold dinner for me. I’ve been having a quick bite by myself after I get home and then try to round them up for bed. Ugh. Not ideal, but you gotta do right? We’ll just make an extra effort to have quality family dinners over the weekend. This started late last week so I’m still in a bit of an adjustment phase.

Last night the little peeps decided to trade the regular bedtime routine (jammies, teeth, spongebob) for playtime in Kat’s room. I agreed and broke out the XM (Sox beat the Royals – YAY) and MLB The Show. Is it weird that I’m listening to a game while playing another one? I took a picture of my favorite corner in my room. I love the juxtaposition of the sock yarn basket and the electronic goodies. Pretty much sums me up, eh?

Why yes, I have a few game controllers on my dresser

After getting pretty well beaten by the CPU in baseball, I took a shower, trying something new with the hair. I decided to see how much curl I can eek out of it. My hair isn’t curly and it isn’t straight. It is the middle ground: wavy! Means that with work I can do either curly or straight and it stays pretty well. I picked up a few products yesterday during my lunchtime outing along Fulton Street and hope that it helps the curly aspect a bit. I am at a the monthly crossroads though. The bangs. Every four weeks or so, I need to make a decision: do I cut the bangs or let them grown. For the last year or so, the scissors have won. What do you say?

(Please to ignore the dopey look and eyebags, ’tis allergy season still. This was the best picture of a half dozen. Why is it so darn hard to get a shot of yourself without looking truly dorky?)

Once I finished futzing with the hair, I sat down to spend some quality time with the Ladybug. As the baseball game ended in Kansas City, I finished the first of the 4oz of Ultraviolet.

You can just make out the second braid sitting in my spinning basket waiting its turn. Very yummy stuff

I’m still working on Ballerina and she’s progressing nicely. I finished up the 17 sleeve stripes this morning on the ferry. Yesterday I spent some time with Excel and the pattern creating a cheat sheet for tracking what all has to be done. You can just see it peeking out from under the knitting. I’ve got three columns: color, neck edge notes, hem edge notes. The pattern has a few too many of those “AT THE SAME TIME” directives that this will be time well spent. I can see each ridge and what has to be done.

This morning’s huge rainstorm had the benches a tad damp so I couldn’t take a full picture. This is the end of the sleeve. The pink is the waste yarn where I provisionally cast on the sleeve stitches. I started the solid blue section on the other side of the stripes shortly after taking this photo. It will have both short rows for the sleeve/back raglan “seam” as well as staggered 3 needle bind off for the sleeves. Its all good.

Craft on!

Thanks to everyone for their mojo wishes yesterday. Apparently, the trick was to pick up something else and work on that for a while. I have to say, I am enjoying knitting Ballerina again, especially since progress can be seen:

Again, I took this picture alongside the East River after getting off the ferry.¬† Its safe to assume that any picture of knitting with sunshine included was taken on the way to work.¬† This bench should be the tip off that it was near the ferry ¬† As you can see, I’ve made it through the first solid section on the sleeve and am into the stripes.¬† There will be 17 white and blue stripes before moving back to the solid blue and tapering the sleeve down for the other side.¬† I found help in approaching this sweater to make it perhaps a tad easier.¬† Excellent posts over here.¬† I used a provisional cast on as they did so that I can three needle bind off the sleeves and not have any sewing to do.¬† We all know how I hates sewing, hand quilting notwithstanding.¬† Never said I was consistent Anyway.. this makes the same project two days running.¬† Woot.

Last night I spent with my XM Radio and my Ladybug.¬† Have I mentioned that I love my bug?¬† Yes?¬† All righty then.¬† I’m about an arm’s length of roving from finishing the first 4oz of the Ultraviolet.¬† Still in love with it.¬† Enjoyed it mightily while listening to the Sox game, even if they did lose.¬† Boo.¬† It was close at the end!¬† Have to say, I’m liking this Jason Bay feller and MLB08 The Show has updated the roster to reflect his addition.¬† Woot.¬† (Oh yeah, I played a little baseball on the PS3 last night before settling in at the wheel)

Pretty no?  I should finish up this first bobbin tonight and move onto the second.

That’s about it for today.¬† I need to go unit test some of my code prior to a status meeting and our pre-release build this afternoon.

Craft on!

This weekend was one filled with friends, fiber, food and family. For a change I was able to attend one of Jessica’s monthly fibery gatherings. My parents surprised me by taking the twins to the boat Friday night after dinner, giving me the evening off. Sadly, because of the current allergy/cold condition, I didn’t get to seriously take advantage of it beyond playing XBox while listening to the Red Sox on XM and calling it an early night with the help of Benadryl. I did get to sleep late and lay around in bed Saturday morning. But because of the now persistent cough, I canceled my dentist appointment. It wasn’t enough to stop me from heading to Jessica’s house at 1 to enjoy her monthly fiber event. Great posts and pictures on that by Deb and Chris and as I suffer from systemic camnesia, I have no photographic evidence.

What did I bring? Oh some yummy fiber that I bought from Jessica on Thursday night to make something for baby sister’s newest baby girl to be (due in Dec/Jan). This is some divine superwash merino in her Ultraviolet color. I started it on the Ladybug (currently the only wheel getting any love) but due to aforementioned camnesia, can’t prove it. The only reason I have a picture is Jess forwarded it to me in email

Pretty no?¬† It is spinning itself.¬† Oh and I might have picked up some more fiber on Saturday…

I headed from the wonderful afternoon of food, fiber and friends up to the boat to meet up with the family types.¬† I got there in time to go out for dinner.¬† After a day of laying about doing not much of anything beyond listening to the Sox on the XM, I was ready to come home.¬† I actually was jonesing to spin more but didn’t feel like schlepping the wheel all the way through the marina down to the boat.¬† Oh well.¬† I spun last night while watching Live Free or Die Hard in Blu-ray on the new PS3.¬† I’m about 3oz into the 8oz that I picked up and it looks like the resulting yarn is going to be fingering/sport weight.¬† Now to find a nice baby sweater pattern for it.

The title for this post comes from the fact that I’m just not feeling the love from any of the “active” knits recently.¬† I hit the cuff on the current sock and couldn’t get through the inch of ribbing and bind the damn thing off.¬† WRS?¬† Haven’t touched her beyond doing a few rows at SnB on Thursday.¬† I was ready to cast on something last night but couldn’t think of anything that was burning itself towards the top of the queue.¬† I dug around next to the knitting chair and found an oldie but goodie that wasn’t too big for commuting knitting this hot and humid time of year.¬†¬† Remember this?

Ballerina is back to active, last touched sometime in April/May I think.¬† Not too dull so as to bore the crud out of me and not so darn involved that I need to sit with a chart in my lap.¬† All in all, makes for an excellent commute knit.¬† I’ve made some decent progress and am a few garter ridges short of the striped sections on the first sleeve.¬† The pink business is waste yarn along the edges or markers for assisting in the various odd bits that need to be done like the raglan short rows or the increases along the edge.¬† I’m going to take some time and translate the weirdly formatted pattern into a spreadsheet. I took the picture this morning after getting off the ferry.

Finally, this is something I’ve been meaning to ask ya’ll about.¬† Since I started taking the ferry last year I’ve been curious as to its docking maneuver.¬† They simply drive the boat up to the dock, push the bow to the edge and rev the engines keeping the sucker in place.¬† We all get on/off with the boat like this.¬† Is this standard ferry docking practice?¬† or just some weird NYC little boat thing?¬† You can see my ferry in the below picture “docked” and right behind it you can see the lower Brooklyn “waterfall”.

Craft on!