Gry: Like angry, but not.

A Post (of sorts)

2008-07-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

In my effort to be a tagalong, I went and copied Jessica. Meet Rosemary and Daisy:

They are very sweet, although Rosemary (the white one) is the outgoing one. She talks and twists her neck all around Exorcist-style and is generally a ham. Daisy (the red one) is much more timid, but when she comes to give you kisses, oh man, her nose is so velvety soft! At night they just bed down under the smoke tree and snooze. I can't think of a better way to clear a backyard of brush. Speaking of which, this is the backyard yesterday morning, pre-goats:

And this is the backyard this morning, after half a day of goat goodness:

I know the difference in the photos is subtle, but believe me, the difference on the ground is NOT. These little ladies have done amazing things in the last 18 hours!

And now, some gratuitous baby photos:

Prodding Plodding Along

2008-01-09T21:09:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

I have recovered from my cold, though my sinuses are still full and making my teeth hurt. Why are our heads full of little infectable cavities? Makes no sense...

Next week Jon starts his new job full-time. He's been home with me part-time since the end of November (after his nearly 2 months of paternity leave) and it's been really really nice. Really, I couldn't ask for a more caring and loving husband and father for our son. He's also hugely more patient than I am with Elliott. Elliott sleeps in a swing on Jon's side of the bed and he is the one to get up many times each and every night to pop Elliott's pacifier back in and give us another hour of sleep. He also brings me breakfast in bed every morning. Granted, it's just a yogurt, but when you're starving first thing in the morning, it's wonderful not to have to deal with the baby before feeding yourself. He also wears Elliott in the Moby for hours on end, without complaint. Our little guy is heavy, 15lbs, and I know it has got to hurt his back at least a little. He also changes all the diapers when he is at home. In short: Jon wins.

So starting next Monday, I will be a full-time SAHM. This wasn't really how I foresaw this happening, but here we are. I've been very conflicted about returning to work. Mostly because I have a lovely easygoing baby who allows me to believe that parenting isn't as hard as I anticipated it would be. I think if I had a more high-maintenance child, I would be running off to interviews at lightening speed, but as it is, I'm enjoying myself. And that's dangerous, because I don't have to work, but our family could proceed with our plans a lot faster if I did. I've begun sending out resumes, but I haven't had any bites yet, and we don't have childcare lined up if I miraculously got a job tomorrow (though we are on a few waiting lists). I also feel like getting my MBA would have been a total waste of time and $60k if I were to not work and stay home forever. And what would happen when Elliott went to school? Or when the kids were out of the house? I feel like I want a career at some point in my life, but that if I wait too long, it will pass me by.

On the other hand, how could I let anyone else take care of my amazing little boy? How will I be able to bear being away from him to go to some silly job where I work so hard for the privilege of not seeing my baby? How can I possibly care about my job now that I have a son, who is obviously so much more important than any job?

It's all the same crap that mothers have been dealing with for years and years. Career? Family? How can I have both and still be happy? The anxiety has been sneaking up on me for the past 6 weeks or so and it was starting to feel like it was going to overtake and consume me at any moment and I wouldn't be able to enjoy this time I have at home. So I saw my psychiatrist and told him I would like the Zoloft back so I don't slip and fall back into that pit of panic. Elliott will thank me for my decision, I am sure of it. This way, he gets to have the best Mommy he can.

Buddha baby...

Don't Get All Hopeful...

2008-01-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

...as I'm sure this won't last.

I've been sitting on my ass al day on the couch nursing a headcold. Given to me by my darling son who, in all honesty, has had it much worse than me and managed to keep a much better attitude. How is it that babies do that? I mean, how do they not act like, oh, babies, when they're sick? He also has a huge spot of cradle cap on the back of his head that began weeping a couple of days ago, yet when I clean it out and put antibacterial ointment on it, he doesn't even flinch. I think we've probably got the whole "Don't act like such a baby" insult entirely wrong. It should be "Don't act like such a 14-year-old" because, let's face it, that has to be one of the worst years of any human's life.

Back to sitting on my ass all day: I have been doing it. So Jon suggested I write a blog post after we put the baby down for the night. He was all "It doesn't have to be the huge long thing, just write a little something". So there you have it. A little something about my headcold and how much I am acting like a 14-year-old, not a baby. To redeem this entry at least a little, here's a picture of Elliott:

Elliott's First Snow

Called Out

2007-12-31T17:32:00.000-08:00

Hey Folks,

Long time, no talkie talkie. I know, I've been a bad blogger. In short, this happened:

Elliott was born on September 29th at 5:35am via a very emergency c-section. We were in the hospital a week (more for me than him) and since then I have been focusing on being a mom.

But! I have been called out by Miss Sundry. So here's the New Year's meme she posted:

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? 

Um, had a baby. Yep. Definitely that. I also made eggplant parmesan from scratch, had major surgery (see: baby), walked more than I ever thought was possible, stood up for myself more than ever, showed my girl parts to total strangers and learned just how much I could learn to love someone.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 

I really don't ever make New Year's resolutions. I'm too flighty. I suppose I would want to lose some of the baby weight this year, but I won't be crushed if my love for all things food related wins out.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 

Yep, me. And a few friends and some family! It was another year of babies.

4. Did anyone close to you die? 

Thank god, no. 2005 had enough of that crap.

5. What countries did you visit? 

2006 was my year of international travel. I was a homebody this year.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? 

More patience and less anxiety. I would also love to have my family closer geographically, but we're not moving and I doubt they are either.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 

Jesus, September 29th and the week thereafter. And possibly the month and a half before. Having this baby was rough on me.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 

I became a mom. I made decisions that ensured I had a live and healthy baby. (Gee, sensing a theme here much??)

9. What was your biggest failure? 

Not keeping up with friends and family. I hermitted away this year which was something I needed to do, but it took a toll on my relationships.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? 

In as much as pregnancy is classified as an illness and c-sections hurt like hell, yes.

11. What was the best thing you bought? 

A Fisher-Price Rainforest Multidirectional Infant Swing. As seen here. This swing has allowed Jon and me to have many uninterupted hours of sleep. I could not love the thing more. Plus, the noises it makes are really rather soothing and I don't mind the toneless "do-do-do-do" it sings to us all night, every night.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? 

Far and away Jon's. The man has more strength than I ever realized. He should win Father of the Year, Man of the Year, Husband of the Year and maybe even a Purple Heart or a Silver Star or a Presidential Medal of Freedom or something.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? 

OMG the Republicans. Why were none of them impeached??

14. Where did most of your money go? 

My mortgage and baby stuff. Followed by fiber. Always with the fiber.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 

Besides the baby (which was definitely excitement mixed with a healthy dose of fear)? I would say I got super-excited about Harry Potter and some aspects of my job. Finding what I want to do with my career would certainly make the list.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007? 

"Someone Great" by LCD Sound System.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:  a) happier or sadder?  b) thinner or fatter?  c) richer or poorer? 

I'm a lot happier, but also a little sadder, not so much richer and way WAY fatter.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? 

I wish I had let myself off the damn hook more often. My personal standards often get the best of me.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? 

I wish I had complained less. I live an extremely blessed life.

20. How did you spend Christmas? 

My mom came up from the Bay Area and we cooked some (extremely smoky) rack of lamb. I love all parts of my beloved sheep! :) We had mountains of presents (really, it was almost embarassing how much Elliott received). We didn't over-indulge too much and we certainly appreciated all that we received, including the white christmas!

21. Did you fall in love in 2007? 

I did. I definitely did. I re-fell in love with my husband and fell hard for our baby boy.

22. What was your favorite TV program? 

Far and away, Battlestar Galactica. So say we all!

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? 

Other than politicians? No. And I'm really happy about that.

24. What was the best book you read? 

I spent my year reading pregnancy books, but the one novel I did read was wonderful. Harry Potter 7, you were lovely and I'm so sad to see you go!

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? 

Guitar Hero. Puts the wee babe to sleep within SECONDS.

26. What did you want and get? 

I wanted a happy and healthy son and I definitely got that. I also wanted familial harmony and got that in spades.

27. What did you want and not get? 

More hours in the day. Also, a Schact Matchless spinning wheel.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? 

Knocked Up. It's surprisingly realistic and Katherine Heigl was hilarious.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 

For once, I didn't have class. That was nice! I turned 27 and we spent the night at home. Jon fulfilled my wish to feel "not like *just* a mom".

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? 

My being able to sit back and enjoy things instead of always looking forward.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? 

Tomboy comma pregnant.

32. What kept you sane? 

Knitting and Jon. If my hands aren't busy my mind gets restless.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? 

Tina Fey. Jon is obsessed with her and I have definitely gotten on board. Also Katee Sackhoff who plays Starbuck on BSG. I admit to having a girl-crush on her. Her face! It's just so expressive!

34. What political issue stirred you the most? 

Healthcare. Why the hell can't our country get its shit together? "Market solution" my ass, Republicans!

35. Who did you miss? 

I wish the sober version of my dad was here to meet his grandson.

36. Who was the best new person you met? 

The ladies of my prenatal water aerobics class. We still get together and they're all really wonderful.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. 

Let other people help you when you need it. I can't possibly please everyone all of the time.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

This one just isn't possible...
-----------------------------

So there you have it, ~~Linda~~ people. No promises for more frequent updates, but I might pop up every now and again if I knit something particularly wonderful...

Test conclusions

2007-07-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

So since I have known for about 4 days, I thought I would finally get around to letting you know the outcome of my (horribly uncomfortable) 3-hour glucose tolerance test. I PASSED. Yeah, that's right: SUCK IT, BAD OB! She can just go prediagnose some other poor vulnerable pregnant lady.

I am beyond ecstatic with my stellar 25-30 points below the highest acceptable "normal" number test results. I can finish out this pregnancy eating what I want. Not necessarily when or how much I want (because I don't want to turn into a dirigible), but I can at least enjoy some of the delicious cherries that my fair state grows every year.

Me and my ultra low-risk totally normal pregnancy have officially ditched my bitchy OB and ran into the open and loving arms of the midwives. My first appointment with them is next Wednesday and I couldn't be happier. I've been reading Pushed by Jennifer Block and I can't tell you how glad I am to have read it *before* I give birth. The book is very well researched and supported but it is slanted in that the author really doesn't present the research on the other side to as comprehensive of a degree. However as long as you keep that in mind, I would recommend it to anyone who is of childbearing age in the US. It's timed perfectly to the release of Michael Moore's new film, Sicko, although I am sure that wasn't intentional. But together they would make any person take a good long look at the state of medical care in the US.

I have no idea how to end this post so, um, it has ended!

In a Rainbow State of Mind

2007-06-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

Lately, my yarn purchases have taken a somewhat similar bent. To wit:

STR mediumweight in Puck's Mischief.

Mega Boots Strecth in colorway AWESOME! I mean, uh, 710.

I recently dug this out of some very deep depths of my stash:

Koigu KPPPM

And I finally got around to spinning the rest of the singles for my Mom's North Ronaldsay sweater with handspun colorwork:

I really have no idea where I could have possibly have gotten the idea. Maybe I was spurred on by something. Well, whatever it is, I seem to have caught it also. I want to see rainbows in everything, which is unfortunate for the impending child since he's a boy and all. As Jessica helpfully pointed out at our spinning group meeting this evening, he won't be able to undress himself until he's 2 or 3, so I have until then to dress him however the hell I please. Rainbows it is!

Demoralizing Cry*

2007-06-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

Rather than leave you, my faithful 2 readers, in the dark about the test results: they came back borderline. I "failed" with a blood sugar level of 141 (acceptable is 130 or 140 and below, depending on your doctor). Over 200 is bad bad bad. So you can see that I'm a long way from 200, and for that I am glad. Only 1/3 of women who fail the 1-hour test end up having gestational diabetes, so there is a really good chance that I am totally fine.

However, I still have to take the "3-hour test" which involves fasting for 12 hours beforehand (this just seems cruel to do to a pregnant woman, doesn't it?) then having your fasting blood level taken, then drinking TWICE the amount of glucose as the last test (100g for those of you playing along at home), then having 3 more blood draws every hour for the following three hours. YAY!!

Since the 50g of glucose made me feel so damn good on a *full* stomach, I can't wait to see my body's reaction to twice the amount of glucose on a totally empty stomach. Apparently a common reaction is to throw up.

Next time: knitting and stuff.

*I have been playing far too much WoW.

Every Two, make that three, Weeks

2007-06-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

I seem not to be able to gather up the momentum to actually post more than once or twice every two weeks. Yargh.

Lots has happened in this last two, make that three, weeks. I went through finals and then graduated with my MBA:

I had family in town:

My belly grew:

And I knit!!

This is the second Baby Surprise Jacket. I just love the little elephants. I have many other projects that require buttons coming down the pike, so any suggestions for online button resources would be greatly appreciated. I seem to have exhausted the cuteness available from my local fabric stores and LYS's. Speaking of buttons, I also added darling little sailboats to BSJ#1:

I've also been spinning the singles that will become the colorwork yarn for my Mom's jacket from Rowan #40 made out of the grey North Ronaldsay yarn we bought int he Orkneys last year. That project is so immense, though, that I will have to save it for another time.

This last month has seemed like a marathon that would just never end. I've been dealing with some stuff regarding the pregnancy, as well. Should I start this story from the beginning? Sure. Why not. Most of you that read this blog already know the story since I have been endlessly bitching about it for nearly a month now, so you can feel free to skip this part.

From the very beginning: I started this pregnancy at 184lbs and a size 12 for pants and size medium tops since I'm not large-chested. I am 5'7" tall. This is technically "overweight" but I think I look fine for my height and I certainly don't look fat. If anything, I just have giant powerful Venus Williams legs and a bedunkadunk butt. I chose my existing gynecologist as my OB since I was scared that I might miscarry or have problems based on a long and storied history of "female problems" and she is in one of the best practices in the city for high-risk pregnancies. We have always gotten along in the gynecological setting, so I figured we'd be fine when our relationship shifted to an obstetrical focus.

I was emphatically wrong. At my 24 week appointment, I dared gain 7.5 pounds over the last month, which, according to her, was too much. I might add that that 7.5 pounds brought me to a grand total of 18 pounds for the entire pregnancy. She thought the "rapid" weight gain signaled that I might have gestational diabetes, which freaked me the hell out. When I asked how it is treated, she went straight to "injectible insulin".

While I was bawling on the exam table, she proceeded to lecture me on nutrition (I eat a very healthy diet because of the Celiac Disease, a fact she refused to give credit to), the need to walk at least 45 minutes a day (walking to and from the bus and work apparently doesn't count) and that yoga wasn't exercise (I beg to differ). She made me feel like I was intentionally harming my baby by gaining weight and that I had caused the gestational diabetes (WHICH SHE HADN'T EVEN SCREENED FOR YET).

(since I've been writing this post for a week...) Yesterday I had my 28-week glucose test with my OB. I was nervous as hell, the test made me sick, etc etc. Her surly nurse took my weight and blood pressure, without bothering to tell me what it was. Then the OB came in, looked at my chart, asked me if I was feeling "better" (she attributes my breakdown last appointment to school and work stress, not to her callous crappy care), then said my weight and blood pressure looked "good". I was already so pissed, and had decided that we were switching practices to a nurse-midwife practice, that I didn't ask her what exactly "good" meant. Maybe she thought it was "good" that I have actually LOST 2 pounds since my last appointment? I have no idea. Then she measured my belly, which was the first time she had ever done that, and said I was "measuring a little big, but that she wasn't going to worry about it until next time". "Big"?? "Worry"?? What?? She seemed to have already made up her mind that the *screening* test I took yesterday would come out positive. No mention of the fact that it would need to be followed up with a three-hour fasting test, etc. etc. etc. to confirm the diagnosis. Then her surly nurse had the audacity to tell me that I would get the results of yesterday's test either today or Monday because she would be out of the office on Friday. I felt like yelling "Tough shit! Then have someone else call me!" I don't feel like I should have to wait all weekend for the test results simply because one nurse in a practice of 9 OBs is out of the damn office!

The thing is, my OB probably felt like yesterday's appointment went great. To her, it must've looked like I took her nutritional "counseling" to heart (I didn't and haven't changed a damn thing about my diet or the amount of exercise I do) and that she had given me an ample chance to ask questions (I'm sorry, but a quick "doyouhaveanyquestions?" while you're trying to run out the door doesn't cut it). She was also probably relieved that there was no crying this time. I felt brushed off, prediagnosed (and incorrectly at that!) and minimized. The woman has given me a guilt complex about eating, feeling fat and gaining any amount of weight this pregnancy. She has destroyed my trust in her medical abilities. And it is the worry she instilled about this test that had me up at 3:46 this morning with no hope of falling back to sleep.

So I am going to a practice of 3 nurse-midwives instead. I met with one of them on Wednesday and I loved her. She's been practicing for 26 years and they (of course) encourage natural childbirth any which way you choose to do it. No mandatory IVs, no offer of drugs unless you request them, no FREAKING THE PATIENT OUT. The midwife said that in her entire time of practicing she could count on one hand the number of times a patient had gestational diabetes that had to be regulated with insulin and that the only difference in my treatment if I do in fact have it is that she wouldn't want me to go *too* far past my due date. Oh, and each of their appointments is scheduled for a half hour regardless, so there will be plenty of time to talk.

This has been such a sick and stressful pregnancy already, I just can't wait for the damn thing to be over!

Tagged

2007-05-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, I've been tagged. What an honor (dubious though it may be)! My first meme!

Seven Random Things (about me)

1. I have no sense of smell. It's a dominant genetic trait on my father's side (he had no sense of smell and neither did his mom). To answer the inevitable follow-up question: Yes, I can taste things just fine thankyouverymuch. Of course, I wouldn't really know any different since I have nothing to compare it to, but my general assessment of food seems to be on par with those with working olfactory glands around me.

2. My undergraduate degree is in linguistics. At one point I thought I wanted to work on speech recognition software for a company like IBM. Thank god I dodged *that* bullet!

3. I have owned a horse since I was 11 with only a 5 year break during my undergrad and the couple of following years. I have been riding since I was 4, though.

4. I grew up with a complete Javanese gamelan in my house. My parents lived in Jakarta for 3 years in the 70's and had free shipping of all their furniture home courtesy of the bank my dad worked for. I can play just about every instrument at a passable level but I am particularly good on the bonong. Having this in our house also meant that all sorts of weird people would come over all the time and ask if we lived in a temple, how do we commune with the spirits of the instruments, etc etc etc. I grew up in an area with a disproportionately large hippie population.

5. I really really hate bananas.

6. I learned to knit when I was about 7 on our summer backpacking trips. Mom thought it would be a good way to keep me occupied. I didn't really take to knitting, however, until I was a teenager and had a phone with a headset in my room but found I needed something to keep my hands busy.

7. I see a therapist once a week. Mostly to deal with anxiety.

So that's all! I won't tag anyone else (because y'all already did it or don't have blogs or are busy having babies or something).

Next time: knitting content. I swear!

What Makes Me a Mother

2007-05-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, I got an email from a male relative telling me titled "Almost Your Day". In it, he explained that next year I would be officially "entitled" to celebrate Mother's Day, but that he hoped I had a wonderful day anyway.

Although I certainly appreciated his sentiment (he's definitely one of my favorite male relatives), I took a little umbrage at his suggestion that I'm not yet a mother. While it's true that my son has not yet been born, and that everything will change when he is, he is still with me and in my thoughts every single moment of every single day. My life revolves around his development: providing him food to grow, getting enough sleep so that I can haul him around all day, feeling his kicks and squirms, planning where he will sleep and how, deciding where and how we would like him to be born, securing the house so that he will be safe, getting a job so that we can pay for him to have the best care...

Every single thing I have done since I discovered that he existed in the first place has focused on him. I go to yoga every week not so that I can maintain my figure (ha!) but so that I can be strong enough to birth him well. I take nasty vitamins that give me terrible heartburn so that he can have the proper nutrition to develop a strong body. I budget my money so that we can be prepared for anything that may come our way once he has been born.

And the worry, oh the worry. I find myself thinking about what the world will be like 10, 20, 50 years from now; what I am bringing a life into. I fear for everything he will have to go through in life and worry about if I will be able to provide a strong enough example for him to follow. Will I be able to give him the tools in life to succeed? The What Ifs flood my mind day and night in a new kind of anxiety that is entirely pervasive to my every waking and dreaming moment.

Already, I find myself having to suppress my Mama Bear temper which flares at the very hint, real or imagined, that someone would ever do something to hurt my baby. I am more protective over him, and by extension myself, than I have ever been in my life. I just didn't care like I do now until I discovered that me was not just me anymore; it was me and him.

So if all those things don't make me a mother, I don't know what would.

Me at 23 weeks. I am going to be huge...

Little Dude's very own Baby Bunny Jacket. From Vogue Baby Knits Too in Cascase 220 superwash in the 1 year size. I've made 5 of these and I finally get to make one for my own baby bunny...

p.s. Jon totally celebrated Mother's Day with me this morning by cooking some KICK ASS gluten-free pancakes and then starting a truly touching Mother's Day tradition. I am blessed to have such a wonderful husband.

------------------------

This post was inspired by Kristen over at Motherhood Uncensored and was brought to you by the Blog Blast at the Parent Bloggers Network and Light Iris as well as the letter E and the number 8.

How to break up with your professor

2007-05-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Remember how I said that I was SO OVER school? I still am. Today I had to resort to breaking up with this group I have been involved with for 7 months via email. The group members all respected my decision to end my involvement with the project (I am graduating in 4 weeks and pregnant, after all), but our professor didn't quite seem to grasp the concept when I told him after we'd done our presentation that I would like a grade now. As in NOW. Today. So I wrote this follow up email to underscore how completely done I am:

Hi [omitted],

I just wanted to follow up on the brief conversation we had about grading and my continued participation with the group. For me, today was not a "dress rehearsal for [Central American country]". This was the final time I will be presenting the plan and the culmination of my involvement with the project.

Right now, four weeks away from graduation, my priorities need to shift to the next phase in my life and career. For me, this project needs to end. The group will be absolutely fine preparing the presentation for a [Central American nationality] audience without me, and in fact that is what they are expecting to do. We have talked about what will change and, frankly, from here on out, I feel it is their show, not mine.

I appreciate the opportunity to work in this group; it's a great cause and I'm sure [my university] will have a strong continued involvement with [the organization]. The group has done an extremely good job in the face of many hurdles and I'm very proud of our final product. And, of course, thank you for your many hours of advising!

Best regards,
-[Gry]

I'm not sure I could have made it much clearer than that. Breaking up is hard to do, but DAMN, this needed to be done. I have been tired of this 3-credit class, that I have devoted *thousands* of hours to, since January. Since before that, really. Now that I am interviewing for a full-time position and my little dude has made a (rowdy) home in my belly, I need to say goodbye for good. Hopefully my extremely direct email will get that point across.

And because this week has been so incredibly full of school work that I still have not had time to photograph my knitting, I am going to have to leave you with solely a garden photo:

this is an arisaema, one of twenty different kinds planted in my garden. But this one is my favorite.

Like, totally ohmigod

2007-04-30T22:27:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

Can I just tell you how Totally. Over. School. I am? I hate it with the passion of a thousand brilliant suns. I only have 5 weeks to go and that seems like an everloving eternity right now. I dunno, maybe it's that I have some much more important things on my mind right now. Like, oh, pushing a child out of my body in four months and change. Or the fact that I have a job, that I love, but that I have to make a case for me being the full-time person in it forever and ever over the next two weeks. Or that THERE ARE BABY SHOWERS TO ORCHESTRATE, PEOPLE! There are so many things on my mind that take precedent over school right now that school feels like your friend's annoying little brother who won't stop sliding Matchbox cars under her door while you two are busy discussing the respective merits of Brad Pitt versus Leonardo DiCaprio as your dream boyfriend with each other. For the love of god, little brother/school, leave me alone!

In other news, for those of you who havent been studiously keeping up with my Flickr photos; we're having a boy! With tiny little boy bits and everything! I was totally convinced that we would be having a girl, but I have to say: I am completely relieved that we're starting off with a boy. And from the lengthy ultrasound we had last Friday I can safely say without a hint of motherly pride or delusion that he is the most perfect 21-week fetus that has ever been created. Here is his precious little face:

Here you're looking at his profile (he's facing left) and he's scratching his forehead.

So I guess I should get to the knitting, eh? Turns out, I have been knitting. I started my fifth baby bunny jacket. The other four were for last year's babies, all born to fabulous women who had darling little sons of their own. Finally, it's my turn and my little boy will be clad in a color scheme that will make him look very much like the Velveteen Rabbit. I can't wait to finish it and show you all.

I haven't stopped trying to figure out the Baby Surprise Jacket in pink and green, but it will be destined for gifting instead of for the little person currently engaged in pummeling me every chance he gets. (Yes, I know it will only get much much worse!)

Work on my Apricot Jacket has been temporarily displaced by the Baby Bunny Jacket, but I am in desperate need for a lighter cardigan, so I'm going to need to finish it very soon!

With that, ladies and gents, Sparticus sez:

Peace out!

Administrativa

2007-04-08T21:03:00.000-07:00

Hey lovebugs,

So, um, I "upgraded" the blog a little and with the changes, all my old comments disappeared. I really don't know how to recover them (I'm talking to Jon about it), but I hope I can figure it out. With the new changes, you will see that I have a profile now, I've updated the links list, the format of the archives has changed, and I have instituted Haloscan comments (after much prodding, Duchess!).

Please let me know if you encounter any trouble other than the old comments not being archived and I will whine at Jon to "fiiiix iiiit". Since I'm pregnant and bitchy, I'm guessing he will. :)

Clearly, it's time for an update!

2007-04-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

Hi there party people,

It's been a long time, eh? I've mostly emerged from the Land of Fatigue and Nausea (which is decidedly the opposite of the Land of Milk and Honey). The famed second trimester energy surge didn't just turn on at 12 weeks like so many people swear it does, instead it was like a very slow veil lifting. I'd have good morning, then a good morning and afternoon, then a terrible day or a hard night. Rinse and repeat for 3 weeks. Now that we're at week 17, I am starting to consistently feel better but I still have off afternoons and evenings.

With more energy comes knitting (and spinning! but I'll save that for another post). Some of it is secret (for a friend's little bubby due very soon indeed!) But I did start a Baby Surprise Jacket in Art Yarn supermerino. This is the only pic I have:

Please note that the color of the yarn does not indicate the gender of the baby; if it's sporting a hotdog, this sweater will go to a hamburger-sporting baby. You'll know on April 27th, just like us.

I have actually knit about half of the stupid sweater, but it's been confusing and I am clearly going to run out of yarn. I've been trying to figure out how the pattern works so that I can fix it, but I am having no luck at all.

I also bought the makings for the Apricot Jacket from Rebecca 27. Please make a note of how that link is to a help forum. This jacket has the WORST directions this side of anywhere and is frustrating beyond belief. I soldier on purely because my belly will be So. Damn. Cute. in it. Speaking of The Belly, wanna see it?

This is 16 weeks and swear on a stack of Bibles and other holy stuff that I am not sticking it out!

Being that I actually LOST 8 pounds during my first trimester, I am not quite sure how I am "this big" at 16 weeks. This photo was taken right after I told work about the pregnancy, which was secret before that. Hiding *that* bump was ridiculously arduous. I pulled all the sitcom actress tricks (giant sweatshirts, standing behind lamps, carrying around manila folders, etc.). It feels good to finally be "out and proud"!

Hm, it seems that for all my promise of knitting going on I have very little to actually show you for it, eh? Maybe I should actually take some pictures next time!

The Reveal

2007-02-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

What in the world could possibly make me stay away from knitting, spinning and my blog for almost a whole month?

I've been sick. Really sick. It's sapped my strength, made work hard and school even harder. My finance grade is pretty abysmal at this point and an important document at work that I have been working on is half a month late. Remember that neurological virus? Turns out it was actually the World's Oldest Illness and we will be adding a new two-legged family member to our formerly four-legged-only brood in early September.

I know, it was a bit of a shock to me as well, let me tell *you*! Not that we hadn't been trying, but we were on a "break", for goddsakes! As it turns out, my Sex Ed teacher in 8th grade was right: It only takes once!

For all the surprise, we are completely ecstatic. This little person certainly chose some interesting timing, but s/he is the most welcome surprise I've ever had. Now if only the little Bloblet(te) would stop demanding coolwhip and/or slices of cheese at all hours of the night!

Robbed

2007-01-23T15:36:00.000-08:00

There is nothing quite so violating as being robbed. In the middle of the night. In your house. While you are sleeping.

Last night some jackass broke into our house, stole my purse (including a half-knitted pair of Jaywalkers in color "jungle"), my wallet, my company laptop (stupid thief, the thing knows how to call home), and my backpack (including a mostly finished baby hat). Fortunately, he didn't get anything of real value (just my identity). But he did rob us of our sense of security, and that is unforgivable. Fortunately, I have an understanding boss who told me to take what time I need to get this all sorted out. So I went out and got a new cell phone, a new driver's license, shut down all my bank accounts and trust accounts, cancelled a series of checks, notified the three credit bureaus to put a fraud alert on my account (that way if anyone tries to do anything with my information, they need to have access to a PIN that only I have and made up this morning and the bank must notify me of any action taken), notified social security to put a fraud alert on my account, got a new ID badge for work, changed all our locks, got a new deadbolt, installed a chain on the basement door, locked all the windows downstairs with new kinds of locks and put a charlie bar in the sliding glass door downstairs.

That fucker messed with the wrong techies.

We're installing a security system including motion sensor lights, a camera and a siren later this week. The system even calls us to notify us of a breach.

That fucker messed with the wrong family.

Now I just need to recover my sense of optimism for the people of this world. Any stories about the good part of humanity you would like to share; now's the time...

Bah Humbug! (Is it too late for that?)

2007-01-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

I have been trying to get this post written for 4 days now. And so far, that's been a wonderful creative process. Except that it hasn't at all. So! We've had a little inclement weather lately. My part-time work schedule allows me to do wonderful things like take mid-morning walks with my hunny and dogbaby after a snowfall:

And knit:

A baby hat for a co-worker's impending baby girl. Finally! A girl!

The beginnings of Samus

And spin!

Two more skeins of Mimi (BFL about 300 yards total) and some two-ply Coopworth X

The many colors of Ella Jean the llama in laceweight

Just in case you weren't clear on the concept of "laceweight". Jebus!

So that's the haps in my neck of the woods. The health thing is still a little ill-defined to say the least. My GI doc is 75% behind the theory that I caught a weird virus that attacked my nervous system. (We humans have lots of neurotransmitter receptors in our digestive tract which is how he proposes that my guts got involved). The other 25% theory is that I have something else. This theory is based on a blood test that shows I had systemic inflammation when I went into the ER. I got another blood test on Friday and if that level is still elevated or even higher then my doc is packing me off to the rheumatologist. Thing is, I don't want any part of the things that rheumatologists deal in. So let's hope it's not that.

Yay!

Now it's a New Year!

2007-01-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Howdy folks,

As I am sure you all are on the edge of your seats: I remain a medical mystery but no appendectomy necessary last night (thank ye baby Jesus). I was discharged at 11:30, (that's right, 12 and a half hours at the ER yesterday, good times!) and Jon and I were able to smooch in the new year on our very own couch. There are, of course, follow-up exams to do, such as an MRI later this week and an ultrasound of my internal organs next week, but I've been through that before and I'll get through it again. In some ways, I wish it had been just a simple case of apendicitis, as the "we don't know what's wrong with you" route is much more tiring.And frankly, I think you deserve a little surgery after sitting on your ass in the ER for 12 hours.

And with that, we can move to knitting.

My mom modeling her "Child's First Socks" by Nancy Bush in hand-dyed handspun North Ronaldsay wool.

My mom-in-law modeling her (size 6 thank god) Rolling Thunder socks in Shepherd Sock. These are heavily modified with a 5-row picot edge, no beads, and two upper-leg pattern repeats.

And finally, folks, I stretched myself this year for Christmas. I have been harboring a dark secret for years and it is finally time to bring it to light: I am (was) afraid of colorwork. I know, it's shameful and I'm not proud of my creative reluctance, but now you know. The thing is, while Mom and I were in Scotland this summer, we saw a beautiful hand-knit sweater at the Raven Press Gallery that was a soft grey with these almost pastel fair isle designs in it and Mom loved it. However, it was very expensive (as all great hand-knits should be). So we traveled on and in the Orkneys we bought enough grey North Ronaldsay worsted weight to make a sweater. The two bags of wool have been sitting around my house waiting for me to find the right complementary yarn and to get the hell over my (idiotic) fear. I did and on Christmas Day, I delivered this to Mom in her stocking:

My mom holding my very first colorwork.

I found the contrast yarn in the form of Sarah Anderson roving at OFFF back in September in the colorway "Autumn Joy" and luckily managed to spin it to the same weight as the existing North Ronaldsay. My mom was happy and impressed (as she should be!) and I have now overcome my Greatest Knitting Fear. It was a Christmas miracle. :)

Not Quite a New Year

2006-12-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

So we're about to start another new year, eh? I'm busy spending my New Year's Eve in the ER (been here since 11am) getting tested for everything under the sun. Right now, we're leaning toward appendicitis. However, blogging from the ER? TOTALLY AWESOME! As it turns out, since I am an alum of the university that this hospital is connected to, I retain my old username and password and still (6 years later) have access to wifi. It's completely sweet!

So, the holidays are over and that means I can finally show you what I was working on for the past three months:

O.M.G. The socks.

I actually had this many more left to do at the time of that pic:

Baby hats thrown in for good measure

And folks? I am NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN. Ever. Not even if the Pope AND Jesus AND the Dalai Lama AND Ghandi asked me. It's just never gonna happen. I love each and every person that I made custom footwear for, but shit man, I'm not sure if I love them all *this* much.

And now, with that, I will leave you to your merriment. I am due for another CT scan in about 5 minutes (or another half hour, god knows the ER is slow as molasses). I will certainly let y'all know how this turns out.

Happy New Year!

'Tis the Season

2006-12-17T23:19:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

I am knitting like a madwoman over here and am beginning to realize that maybe, just maybe I might have overscheduled my knitting time. I fear that I am going to be presenting gifts to people this year with the needles still attached, is what I'm sayin'. Le sigh, as Pepe Le Pew so eloquently once stated. I swear on a stack of Bibles and Korans and Torahs that I will post more regularly once I finish this holiday season. And when I don't, please feel free to kick my virtual or physical ass (it's a much better target in person, trust me).

So, in the spirit of the holidays, I want to call your attention to our Lady of the Yarn Harlot. She is raising the bar and I invite you all to help me reach it. It is the least we can do!

A Million Lifetimes

2006-12-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

Just a quick check-in before I slide back in to TVland (does anyone remember Nickelodeon having TV land after 7pm? I used to hate that). Work is going well; I am trying my best to take it all in. And that's pretty much the extent that I will ever talk about work here.

Today Jon and I suffered a loss. Leslie Harpold passed away late last week. Though I only met her once, at our wedding in 2003, she will be missed. She was an awesome writer and an equally awesome presence. I wish I had gotten to know her better while I had the chance.

And with that, my loves, I leave you. I'll let you know as soon as I have some public-ready knitting to show you.

Maude's Facelift: Semi-conclusion

2006-11-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

Hope your Thanksgiving was all kinds of wonderful. We hosted this year and I managed to make an entirely gluten-free meal. Cornbread stuffing, GF challah bread (so good!), gravy and pies and I could eat them all. O Gluttony! You are my mistress! And because the Moms were coming in to town, we had to finish Maude's bathroom facelift. To refresh your memory, this was Maude before:

In the beginning, I thought we would be able to replace the sink and also the tub fixtures. I was only half on the mark. But we learned lots of good stuff like how to repair a crumbling plaster wall:

How to remove a giant-ass old mirror that never should have been in there in the first place:

What crackheads used to live in our house that they attached that mirror to the medicine cabinet with these screws (I shit you not, my friends):

And when to call in the professionals:

According to the plumber, the crackheads had at one point tossed a silica gel pack down the bathroom sink. Over the years it hardened and no amount of snaking by our valiant friend Tom or the expen$ive plumber would remove it. So we nuked and paved. Maude's downstairs bathrom now looks like this:

While we were at it, we also added a mirror to the upstairs bathroom. Just because we are all schmoopy, the mastic under the mirror looks like this:

We totally accept that we are giant nerds. But now we have another finished and beautiful bathroom!

Lastly, because it is now sealed and done and my offer letter signed, I can now boastfully announce that I am an Amazon.com employee! Wooooooot! I start in a few weeks (as soon as they establish I am not a felon) and I couldn't be happier. After the difficulty of the last six months not working, I am flipping ECSTATIC to be getting out of the house for the purpose of making money once again.

Ah, life is good! Oh, and I've been knitting. :)

Oh seriously!

2006-11-19T18:44:00.000-08:00

It has been almost a month since my last post. That would be pathetic had I not actually done something in that time. Knitting? Yes! Spinning? You betcha! Home improvement? Mais, bien sur mes amis!

Along with all the Christmas knitting (So. Much. Knitting.) I started a sweater for myself and finished a hat and gauntlets. Which I think should be spelled "gauntlettes" because that is frankly more feminine and lovely. So! In the spinning quarter, we have about 300 yards of Mimi spun and plied:

She was utterly useless for the Weekend Pullover by Veronik Avery, so she will be a traditional cabled Aran instead. Which I am just as excited about. Now I just have to spin eleventy kajillion more yards at the same gauge. Oh boy! Also, spun some sock yarn from roving I dyed a while ago:

This is just about 100 yards, unfortunately. But the colors are extraordinary and I could definitely see myself with a pair of socks in this colorway. Maybe I should dye up some more (enough to actually make a pair of socks from the same dye lot even!).

Climbing back out

2006-10-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I feel I owe this blog a post. It's been more than 2 weeks. This last couple of weeks have been tough, but I feel like I am beginning to be able to see the other side. Not to pile on, but my grandma (last of the grandparents) passed away, which is not such a bad thing in and of itself (she had a bit of a mean streak) but it meant that my family was once again grieving and I had to go down to LA to be with them. I feel bad for not being more sad, but it is how it is. On the good front, a potential job came through, which is fantastic and reassuring. I have an interview tomorrow morning. I remain needing to get the hell out of the house ASAP, but I am very glad to have learned that staying home is not for me now rather than later.

In fiber news, I have been knitting Christmas presents, so no pics there, but I have been spinning, just to keep my mind off all the crap going on. Behold, Mimi:

She's one of the BFL fleeces from last spring that I had sent off to Ozark Carding Mill to be turned into pin-drafted roving. The sheen of this fleece just kills me. I have plans to make the Weekend Pullover by Veronik Avery in the Fall IK with this yarn (if it gauges out right). I think the silvery gray will be beautiful in the pattern...

I also participated in the Spinning Roving Swap. And folks, this is what arrived today direct from the Greatest Swap Partner of All Time, Purlewe!

That's a 4oz each of Spunky Eclectic 80/20 Merino/Silk in "Phenomenon" and South African Fine in "Cool Rain" as well as two patterns, one for a pretty throw pillow and the other a Matthew Shepherd memorial scarf (this pattern made me cry...) as well as some Halloween stickers. To say I was shocked does not even begin to describe it! Thanks Anj!! You seriously made my day.

As we all know, I have a very relaxed dog. Well, I am here to tell you that he is not the only one in this house who is enjoying his afternoon naps on the couch.

This would be Huxley, totally upside-down. The cat police will probably try to confiscate this picture for the obvious harm it does to the Aloof Cat image. Tough cookies, cat police!

Down Deep

2006-10-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hey folks-

I know I haven't piped up for awhile. These last few weeks have been increasingly difficult for me. I've been ruminating in my house, unwilling (and sometimes mentally unable) to leave. I know, it sounds far worse than it really is. I've had some schoolwork to do, but I haven't really worked on it at all. And I came to the realization last weekend that this little sojourn of mine into my head needs to end. And soon. I need to go back to work.

This was an experiment, this staying at home thing. And it doesn't work for me. I thought it would be so much different than what it has turned out to be. Mostly, I'm lonely (but yet socially paralyzed to the extent that I can't leave the house. Lovely that!). I've always known that I am an external thinker; I need people around to bounce ideas and plans off of, to try them on for size. And I have to tell you: Oslo just ain't cuttin' it in his role as a sounding board. Being busy is my savior; I actually like being overloaded. I saw my mentor from school last night and I talked to her about how it is to stay at home and it was as if she had lived my life. I talked about how I need my own money again (and to MAKE my own money) even though Jon's salary more than supports our lifestyle. She filled in the sentence with "I'm sure he's happy to provide money to you, but you feel terribly guilty about taking it, right?" And that's it exactly, I need to feel like I have an equity stake in our household, that I'm not some financial remora.

So I started applying to jobs, submitting my resume and cover letters, and all I've heard in return is utter silence. I manically check my inbox, wondering if I provided the wrong email address, but after I check for the millionth time, I see that I haven't. It's a horrible feeling to feel like you're uncompelling. I know that it's all about the network and that I am the most impatient person on Earth, but this lack of anything is almost worse than not sticking my neck out there at all and rotting away in my house.

Of course I've been knitting, but even that isn't making my heart and hands happy like it used to. Plus, all the knitting I've been up to is Secret Gift Knitting, so I can't show you anyway. It'll be that way for a while yet, until I finish a few key projects for the upcoming holidays. Maybe I'll start a cardigan just so that I'll have something to post about.

OFFF: or Maude's Facelift

2006-09-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks! Try as I might to sound chipper, I am a wee bit pissed (still) this week. I've been taking it out on those around me (sorry) and I'm sure I've been a general delight to be around.

Nevertheless, I managed to get my butt down to bootilicious Canby, OR for the 10th annual Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival (OFFF) to increase my strategic stash reserves. Surprisingly, I only bought half of one llama fleece and under $100 of yarn (most of it for other people). I was shocked and amazed too!

The day started off well at about 8am for the drive down to Canby from Seattle. Jon went with me, we took turns driving, and ~~played all day with go-karts~~ waited patiently while I took far longer to get through it all than I had anticipated. Luckily for me, I was rescued form the overwhelmingness of it all by the fabulous Duchess and her friend S. It was really wonderful to have two other amenable fibernerds to sort through the piles and piles of wool/llama/alpaca/angora/cashmere/cotton/flax/dog/goat/etcetcetc.

The one thing I wish I could have done was make this entry an audio entry. The sounds of OFFF were amazing. From the ridiculous voices of the different sheep ("baaaa" to "mehhh" to hoarse staccato bleets) to the muppety "Beaker" noises of the baby alpacas (seriously, the little squeaks, sighs ad beeps alpacas make is a reason to buy one). So, without further ado, the pictures!

The coated Robosheep with leather horns. Creepy!

A Jacob with and obscene number of horns

Bunnies on the move!

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. I just love these two!

The Beaker twins

And now, the fiber stash augmentation!

Socks that Rock

Dyeing A.R.T. in cotton perle for x-mas sox

Sarah Johnson and Rachel Iverson have it going on! How cute is this pattern?

Sporfarm baby alpaca laceweight in copper.

Ella Jean, the llama

And the piece de resistance, fiber from Sara Anderson in colorway Autumn Joy:

So pretty!!

Great Balls of Fiber!

And, of course, since I can't just leave well enough alone, we are also giving our house Maude a little shot of botox. She really needed a central focus for the main floor bathroom. You see, before, she was an era slut; a little from the '20s, a little from the '50s, a little from the '80s... We're restoring the bathroom to the '20s with a euro-style vanity and new fixtures and subway tile. Maude should feel a little less confused when we're done...

Maude sez: "Peace out!!"

ohthankgodI'mhome

2006-09-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

Oh my sweet goodness, folks, I am happy to be home. That trip was a marathon boondoggle of global proportions! It was the most poorly "planned", ridiculously scheduled slog of a sixteen days that I have ever experienced. My time was scheduled down to the half-hour by people who apparently think that graduate students = 14 year olds. Although I was explicitly asked about dietary restrictions, absolutely NO arrangements were made to ensure that I could eat the food that was served at our mandatory dinners. Many dinners I had to make do with nothing or specifically ask the chef myself if he could make something "senza glutine" because "sono allergica a glutine. Mais, patate e riso [are] tutta bene, [but] NO FRUMENTO". Yeah, I also now *totally* rock the speaking of Italian.

Where I was...

Highlights of the trip were all centered around the town's annual Festa. The "men in tights" (sbandiatore) were the best part of that and those guys are not shy about what they have to offer the world in the Package department, if you know what I mean (lecherous wink). We have some pretty spectacularly lewd shots of them from the various parties we attended. They are a fun bunch, though and I now know that the Italian World Cup chant can be cut into *any* song. And I know it by heart. For such a chic culture, they sure are giant dorks when it comes to the music they like to dance to (fast techno, dance hits from the 70's and 80's). I think the only new song I heard the entire time was "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. It's a giant hit with rural Italians.

So many things went on during this trip, it's going to be hard to write a general synopsis, but here goes... I had a good time, even though it was really hard to not be able to eat anything and have to be away from home. The entire living situation was totally miscommunicated (had I known I would be battling scorpions, bedbugs and spiders the size of my fist I would have at least packed a sleepsack and my own sheets. The 65-euro-a-night hotel that I indulged in the last 5 nights was the best money I have ever spent. Italians are a sweet, hospitable, dorky and quirky bunch and although I came to love them, I have no desire to ever go back. Also, one of my two classes was a total waste of time and tuition.

Busatti luxury linen weaving machine from the early 1900's...

So! Did I do any knitting? You betcha! I started the Icarus shawl, and a secret project for the upcoming holidays. I am really really trying to be good this year and do like the Yarn Harlot and put things away as I knit them during the year for holidays gift purposes so I'm not left flatfooted on December 24th (as usual).

Assisi...

The Land of Pasta

2006-09-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

So the Land of Pasta is incredibly unadvanced technologically. I am in an internet cafe that has two computers and runs pirated copies of Windows. Sweet, eh? There is a LYS here and I'll be hitting it up tomorrow (everything is mostly closed on Sunday and Monday). We've been here for the Festa which include flag-waving performances, crossbow tournaments and Renaissance dress. It's really rather neat! I have, of course, been knitting through all of it. But since I have no network access for my computer, you'll have to wait for pictures... :)

That's all for now, time for Siesta! Peace out!

Off On a Jet Plane (again)

2006-09-02T23:10:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I'm off early tomorrow morning to the Land of Pasta and Pizza (and Gluten). I will be back on the 18th just in time for Oregon Flock and Fiber. I've started the Icarus shawl this week as well as a new pair of socks and as usual I am bringing waaaaaaaay too many knitting projects with me. Oh well!

Have a wonderful next two weeks; I'll try to post as I can!

Peace out!

Random Monday

2006-08-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

Everybody else does it, so I can too!

- While I was out riding Mario last Friday, I was picking blackberries (blackberry picking is the very best from on a horse!) in a very populated park, what I call the Disneyland of public parks, when I looked behind me and saw what I first thought was a large dog staring at me 30 feet away. Then I did a double take; it was a GIGANTIC coyote. Mario unfortunately caught sight of the damn thing with its smiley mocking face and laughing eyes and promptly got very nervous. However, he was good enough to indulge me in my Master Coyote Scaring Plan of turning into a very large six-legged noise machine. My good old Mar didn't want to turn around and stare the coyote down, but he did and then enduring me making quite a ruckus on his back without flinching a bit. I am a lucky girl to have such a mount! On Sunday I talked to the folks at the barn about my middle of the afternoon sighting and they said the animal is a "coydog", a coyote/dog hybrid, and that it has been hanging around for months and isn't scared of people at all. They've lost a lot of the barn cats to this genetic mutant, unfortunately.

- It has come time for me to shed the extra 25lbs I have gained in the last 6 months. I am doing a diet that has worked for me before, the WebMD diet, and I am one calorie-giving up cranky lady right now, I tell you what!

- On my way back from Canada I received a phone call from a recruiting company that lands people contract jobs wanting to screen me for a full-time contract position in marketing/project management for a very well-known local company founded by a MSFT gazillionaire (who also may have had a large hand in building the EMP here in Seattle). I am excited about this prospect for three reasons. Reason #1: I lost out on the fellowship I had applied for and that bummed me out. Reason #2: I barely had to do anything (other than post my resume on Monster) to get this call. Reason #3: Yarn money!!

- I take off for Italy this coming Sunday. I have about 20 pages of papers to write and more interviews to schedule and conduct, some in Italy where I don't even speak the language or know how to get to these peoples' offices!, and even more lame-ass homework to do. I signed up for two classes on this study tour in Italy thinking they would be easy and uncomplicated. Boy howdy, was I wrong! They are cramming as much information into two weeks as we usually get in 10 and it's pissing me off, but it's too late to withdraw from the classes now and get a refund. Fucking school! Pair that with the lack of fellowship and I am ready to go back to work.

- Last Thursday, I hung out with my bestest friends E. and M. and their darling sons and it was a wonderful time. It feels really good to be able to have two women in your life who are moms and who support you and you them and who I can play "little sister" to. We're all three the oldest girls in our family and I may be just speaking for myself, but that gets a little tiring sometimes. It feels nice to be able to have someone else navigate or cook for you or organize things and I thank Whoever everyday that I am surrounded by such a loving group of friends. I will end the mushiness now.

- I made a hat from the Louisa Harding Accessories collection, in the actual yarn it calls for, and I am disappointed. It knit up too small (I knit a full inch and a half shorter than the pattern called for because I could see that I would never make it to the full 19 inches and still have enough yarn left over for the crown) and the brim is all screwed up not to mention the TERRIBLE finishing instructions. It's a good thing I made that call, too, because as is, I had about a foot of yarn left over. The finishing instructions called for mattress stitch, which looks like hell on the underside and doesn't actually hide the seam at all. I am completely underwhelmed with this hat and it illustrates why I usually never buy designer books; they don't check their gauge or proof-knit their patterns and they are just as expensive as patternbooks that do. So here's a blasted picture of me in the $%*&# hat:

Peace out, yo's.

Back from Beyond

2006-08-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I'm back from here:

It was actually a restful vacation where I did things like get a massage at Hollyhock (the local Hippie Yoga Palace), go to the farmer's market in search of salal jam and honey, eat oysters whenever I darn well pleased and nude it up in a place so uninhabited that no one would ever see me. When I was little, our family used to kayak and camp all the time. The ocean kayaks that transported us up rivers, across lakes, and through mud are now at Mom's cabin. I thought it would be fun to go kayaking but the stupid stabilizers (air bladders on the side of the boat) wouldn't hold air. I was sad.

p.s. I know I look completely melty-faced demented here.

But I kayaked anyway!

Jon married me because I am a silly goose, so I already know that as well. I was determined to take to the water in some manner other than swimming, although I (barely) did that too. I rowed the dinghy:

That's Oslo on the bow, balancing. Shortly after Jon took this photo Oslo decided to jump ship and take a swim. Once he went in, though, I think he realized just how cold it is in the middle of the Sound and he swam alongside the boat where I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him back in. Silly dogs. They just don't listen to their mamas! We also visited friends (Scott and Delia) in Teakerne Arm. They help run the local oyster co-op and this is their float house. Where they live. All year round.

Their house is in the center background of the photo.

Of course, no vacation would be complete without knitting! I took an unfinished sock, an unstarted Phildar tank (#28 from Printemps 2005), an unstarted Phildar cardi (#30 from Printemps 2005) and the Sienna Cardi. And guess what?? All that I did was finish Sienna. Big surprise, eh? Yeah, it totally shocked me too!

Here she is a-blockin':

And here she is at home, all finished up!

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I knit it in the madder-dyed Shilasdair yarn in size 39. When I tried it on pre-blocking it was waaaaaay small, so I blocked it much bigger and it obliged. Thankfully. This is what I got done of the sock before I discovered I'd broken a needle:

And the tank:

I'm trying to knit this in the 41" size at the base and then at the 38" size at the top. I am shaped like a pear. Unfortunately, this may make me fanangle a little and I'll probably end up procrastinating on figuring it out until I am 70 years old and a *completely* different shape. Le sigh.

And here's the progress on the Phildar cardi:

Amazing! It's an invisible cardigan and this is my leftover wool! I am way more talented than I originally thought. Where's the emperor? I have some sweaters to knit for him.

Lest you think I didn't do my fiberhound job and ferret out the scent of new wool (wow! how many animal hunting references can I cram into a phrase?) I did happen upon a little store called Mad About Ewe (sadly web presence-less) in Nanaimo, BC, that carried the most uniquely Canadian wool I know of.

Yep, you read those tags right. Fleece Artist. Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum!!! Just one skein of Lady Godiva and 2 skeins of 2-ply cashmere. I vowed to only by yarn I couldn't find at home easily and to spare my pocketbook (thanks for the sucky exchange rate Bush, you pansy...). I love this yarn, I really really do. Now I just have to find projects for it (that I will never finish anyway so what in the hell does it matter?). And of course, I also picked up some of Joy's wool:

That there is 12 skeins of Joy's homegrown Cortes Island Romney/Hampshire/Leicester/other breeds X lopi yarn. I measured out a skein using my niddy noddy and it comes to about 148 yards/skein. More than enough for two sweaters. I will dye it and let you know how it turns out.

Peace out!

Sunset our first night at the cabin

Lordy lordy lordy

2006-08-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

Wow has this last week been a whirlwind!

Tuesday/Wednesday = $#@$!&^ finals.

Thursday = Mike and Casey came up to visit and deliver dear sweet Phoebe's fiber for spinning into laceweight. Thanks for trusting me with this Casey, I'll do right by your bunny. We had a great time going to the dog park and found a fantastic Thai place that satisfied my GF diet and their vegehoovian tendancies and all was grand!

Friday = Up at 5:45am to do wedding flowers. This is the result:

Saturday = A blank. I have no idea what I did... Oh yeah, I had to go to class for the courses I'm taking in Italy. And then I had to go to "Festa" where we all tasted wine (none of which I liked; they were all way too acidic) and there was no gluten free food. Yum! So Jon and I went out to dinner later instead and we saw Little Miss Sunshine. I laughed, I cried, but really, I mainly cried. That movie is NOT your typical comedy.

Sunday = I rode and then went to the dog park with my friend M. and then we did one of our last GF/no-dairy cookathons before she moves to the Bay Area at the end of August. Turns out that lemon bars translate incredibly well to suit our weird GI tracts! We let Jon have a lemon bar and then M. and I attacked the 9x9 pan with a fork each and demolished our delicious effort. You know you've got a good friend when you don't even bother with plates and midway through the sugar craze, you mutually decide that the topping is better than the crust and proceed to scrape all the topping off and leave the crust. :)

Monday = Lunch and a "Cruisers and Crawlers" (which I keep accidentally calling "Creepers and Crawlers") group with my other friend M. for a b-day cause celebre. C'etait fantastique! Merci Mme. M!

Today = Mass craziness working toward getting packed to go up to my Mom's place in Canada for a week. So I'll be gone, knitting and seeing my favorite wool producer, Joy Shipway, on Cortes Island. As usual, I have an extremely optimistic 2 projects along for the ride (A Phildar tank and a Phildar cardi, I know, I'm insane). I'll be back next Tuesday rested and relaxed.*

*HA!!

The Nature of Being a Leo

2006-08-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

I can't help it, really I can't. When it's my birthday (a date that I had nothing to do with) I need to shout it from the rooftops. I tell checkout people, cashiers, the mailman, anyone who will even feign interest. I love my birthday and it sucks a whole lot of crappy crap that I have to go to a macroecon marathon class tonight. But if I can't enjoy it, y'all can. So here is a pretty rose bouquet made especially for you from my garden just this afternoon. Enjoy!

Poo on finals week!

2006-08-07T23:01:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, along with being my 26th birthday, I have a major macroeconomics final with both a take-home portion and a paper and presentation of said paper due. And the next day I have a law paper due and a final in my business law class. Fuck finals week in the summer, y'all. In between study sessions, though, I have had some time to make more of the Sienna Cardi from IK F2006. It's turning out really really well!

I've got the front and back and the cuff of an arm done. So I'd guesstimate that I'm about 2/3 done. Woot!

On Friday I went to the first meeting of the Seattle Spinners group that meets at the Fiber Gallery in Phinney Ridge on the first friday of the month. It was great fun; I really enjoyed the group and the store is one that I want to spend MUCH more time in... I took my North Ronaldsay carded top from the Woolshed on Orkney and spun this up:

Although it is soft and interesting and wonderful, I am pretty happy I didn't buy more because me and this type of fleece do NOT get along. The stuff sticks together, doesn't draft nicely, is neppy and breaks constantly. The novelty value is high, but I will be very very glad when I am done spinning it.

And I have also been homemakering along. Behold, the power of jam!

Non-crappy title goes here

2006-08-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

First let me inform all my tens of readers (shamelessly stolen from Skot at Izzlepfaff who is a very very funny man) that my birthday is only 7 days away. Being that I had such a completely shit year last year, I intend for this next year to be fucking awesome in every possible way.

I also expect gifts of yarn.

Ahem.

On the 23rd we went here. And yes, it was completely awesome. Althought it was hotter than hell out in the Gorge, I passed the time knitting and listening to my favorite band and that made it much more like heaven. I just found out that PJ will be in Italy for five tour dates during the two weeks in September that I'm in Italy for school. I will have to see them or I will never forgive myself.

At the show I made this much progress on the Lotus Flower tank:

However, just when I was really hitting a groove with the LFT (Lotus Flower Tank), the Fall Interweave Knits arrived. Blast ye, yarn gods!! The remainder of the Shilasdair yarn came on the 18th, so I was forced, FORCED to look for a project for the 600g of madder-dyed yarn I had purchased. This is what I came up with:

A one-third finished Sienna Cardigan. If I actually have enough yarn for this, it is going to be absolutely gorgeous. I'm going to change the sleeve cuffs though. The original pattern has just rolled cuffs, which seems silly with all the beautiful ribbing around the bottom. I'll probably substitute 4 inch 2x2 rib cuffs.

Two days ago, we went to this hilarious annual event:

The Lundefest! 20+ identical fox-like primitive dogs running around sniffing each other's butts. (Oslo is in the back making faces with Jon.) The Lundehund is an independent breed descended from a primitive dog population in the outer western islands of Norway and used for centuries to hunt puffins. When in large groups, they are even more ridiculous than that description could possibly let you imagine. The above picture is cute, but mass quantities of Lundies can only sit still for about 2 seconds. This was the group as it dissolved:

The Fest includes agility events and a beauty contest with prizes like "Most ridiculous toes" and "Best ear folds". Oslo won "Best white collar". Which made me very very proud, I am ashamed to admit. They also have a race.

That's Oslo on the far right at the start of the race. I take no responsibility for pointing out the obvious here: Jon looks like a Backstreet Boy in this photo. He was also mistaken for Justin Long, the Mac guy at our local Apple Store the other night. To the U Village Apple Store employees: You made my husband's week. Thank you.

I leave you this week with the warning that I am about to hit finals, have two papers due and lost the needles necessary to make the mate to this sock:

Poop!

Quick! Alert the Press!

2006-07-20T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm posting for the second time in a week! OMG! The reason of today's post is this:

That's right; new baby birds! Jon is livid because of what, I don't know, but he is wishing that the nest had been removed. What I love about his position is that *he*, the person who doesn't like the birds, is somewhow excused from being the one to remove the nest. I figure since he doesn't want them there, he should have removed the nest. I like the birds, so I didn't. And now we have a new batch of baby birdies on the way.

I have been spinning lately, and struggling with self-patterning yarn. I wish the stupid yarn came with a simple "cast on this many stitches" instruction. As it is, I usually have to start and rip a few times to get the stripes right. Harumph!

I do have an almost-finished pair of Jaywalkers in Koigu, though. These are the ones that the girls helped me out with on Sat.

I love this colorway, but I wish Koigu would name them (like Socks that Rock and other cool companies do) so that we could keep them straight. It's hard to memorize a number and even harder to describe the color!

And lastly, Oslo in repose:

New Week New Post

2006-07-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in my most crazy, insanely boring macroecon class right now. This last week I decreased further off my medication which made me even more unstable than I usually am, but my whole depressive state was compounded by the first anniversary of my dad's death this past Sunday. My best friend was in town from San Francisco and it was really only the activities that we had planned that kept my mind off it. We had a beautiful lunch on overlooking Seattle. Left to right: me, T. and J.

Can you believe this view? Me neither!

But she left, much too quickly!!, on Sunday afternoon and The Mope descended. Jon has spent the last few days renting comedies to take my mind off things (note: do not rent the Nathan Lane/Matthew Broderick remake of The Producers; it sux majorly and stuff).

So, in lieu of more depressing stories of depression, have some pet photos! Being that I am home a lot more these days, I have been catching the pets in various hilarious states of repose.

I was in the spare bedroom closet when I heard a sound.

Can you find the Heidi?

There she is! The most hilarious thing is that this is the view from her Heidi-hole (that sounds vaguely dirty, but I swear it's not):

That's right; it's my stash. She swears she was just keeping an eye on it, not plotting what to bring as an offering to us in the dead of night. I also took advantage of Wednesday afternoon to re-cover the couch with my dear friend E.

Huxley, however, thought that I was making a bed especially for him. At least *he* likes the old cushions (blech!).

Today, though, he picked up my Missing J. Vibe and took a lengthy snuggle in the guest bed. Meanwhile Oslo was nonplussed:

He does, however, like the new throwpillows from Cost Plus very much.

I swear that I will be back to my vibrant ridiculous self soon. There have been too many uninteresting, mopey entries lately (or lack thereof). The knitting has been progressing and I just got the remainder of the yarn I bought from Shlasdair Yarn (the Skye Yarn Company) yesterday and was dismayed to find that it wouldn't work for the sweater I wanted it to. So I am currently looking for a new project. If anyone has any ideas for a worsted weight yarn (600g) please do let me know. I'd like an expandable (read: not too fitted) comfy fall/winter sweater.

Oh and I almost forgot! I hosted a marvelus Stitch n' Bitch on Saturday in honor of J.'s visit. We had a grand old time and the girls helped me to fix a problem with my WIP Jaywalkers. Thanks ladies! I hope to make the SnB happen every month. It's a great chance for us all to get together and help each other out. I taught a yarn virgin how to knit and another dear friend, R., helped out. The kicker was that I had also taught R. to knit. She knits while waiting for raids in World of Warcraft to start (it takes awhile for 40+ people to get organized). I think that's just so neat; we're all helping each other and spreading the joy of wool. It's like a new kind of social disease! :)

Lull

2006-07-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

Hey folks. So yeah, about those vacation pics. You can really just see them all on my Flickr page. Breaking down the trip is kind of tedious and I have (baseless) fears of creating the links to the woolfolks that I bought from. I should really just put together a great big list and post it in the sidebar or something...

The last week has been tough for me. This past fall and winter, as you may know, I struggled with being very sick and quite depressed and anxious. Because of that, I went on medication (Paxil, then Mirtazapine, then *finally* Zoloft) and went through some extensive therapy. The time has come for me to go off the meds. I started the decrease last week on the 4th and have been a lethargic, emotional, achy, nauseated wreck ever since. Getting up the energy just to write this entry has taken me awhile (I know, you're shocked!). But, just because I am struggling with withdrawal doesn't mean that I haven't been knitting. It's actually quite nice to have something so soothing and familiar to retreat to when you're feeling down.

I have made a pair of around-the-house booties:

Yarn: Something or other Eskimo in color "The Joker" (my name for it)
Needles: 6mm dpn
Guage: 3 or 4 st/in
Pattern: my own. Basically I cast on 40 stitches, worked 6 rows in the round alternating knit/purl so I got a garter-like stitch, then took 20 stitches for the heel flap, knit it until it looked long enough, worked a short-row heel, and knit the foot until it was as long as my foot when I tried it on. Only *then* did I decrease for the toes (the decreses were worked in a haphazard manner every other row) until I had 16 stitches left. Kitchener-stitched the toe shut. Felted in an equally haphazard manner.

I know it sounds complicated, but you can do it, I swear. Basically, when making felted booties, pick a yarn that will felt nicely (Eskimo is a bulky 100% wool single-ply)and knit a sock with no leg that is about 30% too big for your foot. Felt in whatever manner you like best (mine is, obviously, haphazard).

I also have about 9oz. of Opal merino sockyarn that I am planning to do this to. Not the shawl or the colors, but the knitting up a rectangle then dyeing it thing. The technique looks like a lot of fun except for the whole knitting a plain white rectangle part.

What else, what else? Oh yes, I am working on the Lotus blossom tank from the cover of Interweave Knits Summer '06. So far, it looks like this:

I'm knitting it out of a really neat (but completely frustrating and unforgiving) yarn; GGH-T Safari in color 30. The stuff is 75% linen and 25% nylon, so it's really no wonder it's so damn stuff, but the color is fantastic so I'm sticking to it.

The Western Isles

2006-06-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

For an unemployed person, I seem to be awfully busy... So here's the Outer Hebrides (also known as the Western Isles) breakdown:

Without a doubt, the Outer Hebrides are one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The people are reserved but also incredibly generous; the terrain is rugged and changes with every curve you round; the beaches are breathtaking; the sheep are everywhere. Like seriously, everywhere.

They are also not always quite so cute:

Most of these sheep are meat sheep so their fleeces are, um, not so much with the valued. Most of them are "blackface" or Cheviot (pronounced chee-vee-it in the Islands). I only saw one herd of Hebridean sheep while I was there. When I asked a weaver why, they said it was because they aren't good meat ship and they only have fleeces that are about 1.5 pounds or so. They are cute, though; tiny and black and skinny little things.

After taking We stayed with Margaret Cowie at her beautiful home in Leverburgh, Harris. Margaret is a fabulus cook and was really kind and conscientious with my whole deathly immune reaction to gluten thing. I seriously could have stayed with her the entire trip. Screw the Orkneys, screw Loch Ness, screw it all I'll take the Hebrides any day.

Overlooking the Atlantic:

The changeable face of the South-eastern coast of Harris:

The Southern tip of Harris looking out toward North Uist:

A cove near Geocrab on Harris:

The foreground is covered in wild iris but we were just about a week too early for the bloom... I will post the rest of the Hebrides portion tomorrow; it's too image-heavy for one post.

Adjusting

2006-06-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

Life has been a little rough to me the last week. Adjusting to not working is a fair bit harder to do mentally than I thought it would be. Everyone I talk to tells me what a dream it is that I'm living and how I "should enjoy it!". For a person who struggles with a great deal of anxiety, this last week has been really tough. Add to that the person who shares the financial burden of my horse backed out of her lease and I am a little panicked.

All this to say, I will be back in the next couple of days with a post on the Hebrides, but right now, I need to go think.

<>

A note on the solstice

2006-06-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, the summer solstice was yesterday (the date I was originally intending to post this, but I was riveted by my business law lecture. No, I am not joking). *Anyway*, in my pre-Knitting Frenzy I always dreaded the summer solstice. It signaled to me that the winter was closer than ever and that all of the hot weather yet to come was almost disingenuous in its heat; it would be followed by cold and darkness no matter what we did. This thought haunted every lazy summer day at the beach, on vacation, or driving around with friends.

Now, however, summer solstice is my favorite day of the year. Since becoming a Seattleite about 8 years ago I have come to hate the heat of summer (a mere 80 degrees if we're especially unlucky) and spend most of July and August fervently wishing that we won't have an Indian Summer that year. In relation to the Knitting Frenzy, summer solstice signals a countdown to the best new yarns, cozy patterns and a return to reason for the knitting magazines. I look forward to sumptuously soft snuggly designs, to hours spent in front of the fire, my needles clicking away, to the long dark days that make it easy to stay indoors sketching that next sweater.

So welcome, summer! Hurry up and get the hell over with so I can get back to some serious knitting.

Skye Now, Skye Now!

2006-06-20T18:02:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, the Isle of Skye is fantastically beautiful. We actually had wonderful weather the entire time (65-80 degrees and SUNNY), but I seem to have taken most of the pictures from Skye on the one foggy morning. Also, most of the things I bought there are presents that have not yet arrived in the mail.

This was the view from the front yard of the B&B we stayed at. Our hosts, Chris and Janet Mitchell, were just wonderful. Mom and I got in really late (I over scheduled how far we could drive, natch) but Janet had gluten-free biscuits (cookies) and tea all ready for us. It was so sweet I almost cried. Janet staked out a permanent place in my heart (as if the biscuits weren't enough!) when she unveiled a hand-made gluten-free loaf of bread the next morning for breakfast. I brought that loaf with me all over the rest of Scotland and it kept wonderfully. Thank you Janet!

Everyone kept telling us that the sheep were everywhere in Scotland, but I didn't quite believe it until I saw it. Seriously, the sheep are everywhere. They run wild on Skye and the Western Isles, but the farmers slop a big color mark on them to keep ownership straight. Most of these sheep, as explained to me, are raised for meat so they're never shorn and some develop some damn mangy fleeces.

We were travelling about a month after lambing, so there were plenty of these everywhere:

Cute, eh? I know, I wanted to hug every single one of them. And the noises, the *noises*. Little plaintive "baaaa"s and "bleeet"s echoing off the hills. It was enough to break my heart a million times a day.

I dropped a *ton* of money at Shilasdair (Skye Yarn Co.). Unfortunately, the fruits of my wallet's labor are still in the mail. So you'll have to be satisfied with a picture of the place:

I would go back to Skye (and Chris and Janet's) in a nanosecond.

Skye on Hold

2006-06-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

Folks, my head is spinning from the jet lag. I have been up since 4:30 this morning and I can't fight it any more. I am putting off Skye until tomorrow (although I start my summer quarter tomorrow) so please enjoy a flower arrangement I did for some new friends who had us over for dinner this evening instead. (Whew! That sentence was a doozy!)

I'm home!

2006-06-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

True to form, what I thought was an underscheduled and "relaxed" vacation turned out to be a mad dash from one end of Scotland to the other. Oops. Hardly surprising, though, considering that that is my usual M.O. Mom was a good sport and logged more than 1600 miles on the little VW Golf+ that we rented. It was certainly the trip of a lifetime and we had a ompletely awesome time being Mum and kid, on the road. We did some birding, looked at a lot of neolithic sites and bought lots and lots and lots of wool.

The pile of ~~shit~~ stuff I brought home was truly astounding. What's even more astounding was that it all fit in my suitcase! Mom could barely believe it when I announced that we wouldn't need to be stopping by the post office; I had it all jammed in my carry-on-sized rolling bag.

This is, of course, an edited pile because I didn't include the multitudes of gifts I brought back.
I think the best way to go about showing y'all pictures of the trip is to take it region by region. I'll progress the way our trip did, so you can witness the full extent of my wool madness. The best thing to come out of this trip were the people I met and what I learned from them. All of the wool I brought home came from small independent farmers who in many cases dyed their own stuff using natural dyes. I now have an excellent (and easy!) indigo recipe and am contemplating moving my dyepot to a firepit in my backyard for ease of smell on poor Jon's nose. (It's really awful when I get to microwaving vinegar...) I saw breeds of sheep I never knew existed (the North Ronaldsay being chief among them) and learned about their wools and processes in a way that most people could never dream of.

Now, though, the jetlag is making me want to pull my eyes out, so I am off to make a pot of tea and try to stay up until 10. More to come!

Postcard from the Western Isles

2006-06-09T06:48:00.000-07:00

I am using the internet from a public library in Stornoway, Lewis Island, Western Isles. It is so completely beautiful up here I can barely even believe it! White sand beaches stretching for miles with water so turquoise you would think you were in the Carribean. We thought we would be stuck here on Sunday because the entire island shuts down for the Sabbath, but we lucked out due to a change in the ferry schedule. We're having corgeous 70+ degree weather and clear; no rain to speak of!

I also have no phone service to speak of, so you'll have to wait for the pictures...

The wool has been excellent, but people really don't process their own wool the way we do in the states, it's rather surprising. Also, knitting is falling out of favor among the youngsters and it's not nearly as in vogue as it is at home. However, I have been able to tour two natural dye studios and have bought enough wool (you'll see it later, I promise). I'm sure I'll run into a shop that has *just* the thing I need, though... :) I bought tweed this morning at Castaway Crafts in Tarbert, Harris Island and hand-dye from Soay Studios just outsode of Tarbert. I'll post the links when I have a chance!

I'm honestly not sure if I'll be able to post again until I get home, but I promise days and days of photos. The sheep are everywhere and we're here a month after lambing season so baby everythyings are running around cute as buttons. It's really just too perfect.

More later! Signing off...

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2006-06-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning, I depart for the Land of Wool. I have spent all day preparing; packing, doing laundry, frantically weeding my garden lest the weeds overwhelm the house, making lists and checking them twice, chasing off morbid thoughts of Jon and my last moments together, calling Mom and assembling the projects to go on the plane.

Now, I know that I am going to a place where there is lots and lots (and lots) of yarn, possibly every which way I turn. But there's this little knitter phenomenon called the Stash, and where once I thought that the Stash was stationary and usually limited to one's house, I now know that the Stash is mobile. Very definitely mobile. It was hard (too hard) to decide what to bring with me, but here it is:

That's the yarn for five (yes 5) pairs of socks. Can I knit 5 pairs of socks in 13 days? No, probably not. But that is not the point!! I have choice! I also managed to bring about 15 (not exaggerating) patterns as well as technique pages xeroxed out of my favorite books (so that I need not lug my library as well...). You can also see my Nano and a whole huge sack of gluten-free snack bars and hot cereal. If I didn't feel so darn good, I would truly hate the diet I have to follow... Anyhoo, I'm off to bed and then to the airport at 8:15am. Next post: Edinburgh!

Last Day

2006-05-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day at the office. Tuesday night we had a really nice dinner at an Italian place (complete with gluten-free pasta for me!) and all the people I am going to miss most. It was great getting to hang out with the wives and kids as well; all those peripheral people that are part of the package... At 4:45, I finally snuck out of the office. I didn't want to make a big deal out of the fact that I was leaving *for the last time* and I didn't want to see some (well, one) person at all. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried as I drove away.

I spent my entire Memorial Day weekend writing a final paper for my international management class. The thing still isn't done (due tonight) and it is sucking the life out of me. I really haven't written like this for a long time and [wah wah] it's hard! It's definitely very weird having my classes and my job wrap up like this, all at once. It seems surreal that I will be heading off to the Land of Wool on Sunday morning. In preparation, I have been spinning and plying. Stormy Skies, Stormy Seas as a two-ply:

After looking at the bobbins for so long, it's surprising how dominant the blue is in the skein.

I've also knit a whole heck of a lot of sock. Witness!

Unfortunately, I might have to finish these before leaving for Mecca of Wool. A pity that! And, just because sometimes, when you do really scary stuff in life and the weather just absolutely refuses to co-operate (just sayin') here's a pretty ranuncula.

A Time of Change

2006-05-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

My last two days at work are Tuesday and Wednesday. My predominant thought right now? "What the flying fudge [sic]* was I thinking?!?!?!"

Suddenly, after so many months of convincing myself that this was the right decision (and it is, I know it is) I am suddenly consumed with self-doubt. Will I have to go back to work in a couple of months? Will I be able to find another job before I finish my degree? Will Jon and I have to resort to panhandling at a downtown freeway exit?**

It's not just the sudden (perceived) insecurity, it's also that I am leaving daily conversations with some of the coolest people I know. Of course, there are still the things that I left the job over (and it really doesn't look like they will ever be resolved), but I will miss the goofy group of geeks that I've come to love over the past three years. Will I be able to stay in touch? I'm enough of an adult to realize that the friendships won't stay the same, they will change with the new situation, but I'll miss the way they are now.

So what does a panic-stricken fiber fiend do on a friday night when she's feeling up poop [sic] creek without a paddle? She dies a fudgeton [sic] of wool, that's what.

Behold! A pound of brown blue-faced Leicester roving dyed in teal, cranberry and rust! The plan was to have this turn out mostly teal, but the cranberry and rust won the day. I also did a batch of icicle (just to see if I like it); that's it in the middle there. I hate the feel, but it takes color wonderfully. Then I did 4 oz of a Bearfoot-like blend that I can't wait to make into socks!!

*Won't anyone think of the children??

**This is not even a remote possibility, but that's where my mind goes...

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Last but not at all least, I bring you: When bird dogs and inbreeding collide!

Use your words, Oslo!

Preparations

2006-05-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to decide what to take with me to Scotland. It seems so silly to bring knitting projects, being that I am travelling to the Land of Wool, but I have to have something to do on the plane *before* I start going bankrupt in the Highlands, right? Right? Yeah, I thought so too.

Because lace just doesn't seem so appealing right now, I opted for hardier fare. I am attempting to jump on the sock bandwagon. My first step was to pick up Nancy Bush's book Knitting Vintage Socks and a set of extremely small double pointed needles. I settled on the Fancy Gentleman's Sock (for me) in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colorway Gold Hill. Definitely stash yarn, but so far, a phenomenal knit:

I have 5 more sets of yarn waiting to be pairs of socks in the stash and I am bringing ALL OF THEM to Scotland with me. Just in case, you know... Also, in spite of the fact that I am travelling to the Land of Wool, I have been buying wool for projects like a fiend. My LYS was having a sale on bulky Lopi for $3.99 a shein and I bought 6 skeins ina wonderful smoke blue with a mind to make something like Cassie's beautiful poncho. *Then* Paradise Fibers was having a sale on Lamb's Pride Worsted for $3.99 a skein, so I thought I might buy the wool to make Samus. Le sigh...

And, just because she is funny, a pic of Heidi being in love with my spinning wheel. This is the LEAST lewd of the photos I took of her molesting the front leg of my Ashford Traditional.

And last but not least, the baby birdies fledged!

Sometime around noon on Sunday I heard them being fed (trust me, it was really not that hard to miss it) and then I looked in the nest at 6 or so and they had gone!

The Kill of the Yarn Predator

2006-05-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

Please note: The following story is true. All photos were taken surrounding the bed in the master bedroom, where the prey was offered up to the animals at the apex of the pyramid in the dead of night. This could happen to you!

This is the culprit:

She looks nice, doesn't she? Just a little furry kitty to pet and love. Until she gets The Look!

Every night, she leaves offerings of wool around (and sometimes in) our bed. She is a talented huntress preying on the rovings and yarn and knitting in her kingdom.

Looks innocent enough until you are faced with the true scope of her abilities...

When she ran out of little bits of stray roving (she used to bring us long trails of it until I learned to hide it), she unleashed the big guns.

She turned to finished objects and swatches:

And finally, when she ran out of all else, she turned to handspun...

Here is the beast herself, passing last night's kill. Will she ever be satisfied???

Only time will tell...

Worst Blogger Ever, Please Raise Your Hand

2006-05-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

(raises hand)

I am a serious flake about this writing thing, I know. Since announcing my eminent departure, things have been good, but strange, at work. I feel like I shouldn't be talking about it, mostly because most people do not have the luxury of quitting their job and not having to immediately find another. The situation is different with me, it's not like Jon and I are cast from gold boullion we just scrimped and saved, but it still feels a little weird. It's still the right decision, of course, I just need to figure out how to make *myself* okay with it.

In knitting news, Rogue, she is finished. She almost killed me, smashed me up against the rocks, made me question my faith, but I persevered and I have come through a stronger knitter. I learned so many new techniques with this project, it was incredible. My seaming skills have vastly improved, I finally know the proper way to pick up stitches and knitting a hood no longer scares the bejesus out of me.

-----------------

It is now the 17th of May. I can't believe I haven't posed this post yet. I am a blogging FAILURE. I've been so busy reading everyone's account of MD$W that I haven't even though of this site.

So, we'll just end it with a picture and then I can move on from this tar-pit of a post.

Three-legged Rat Terrier v. Border Collie!!

Also, baby birds (and their copious poop) outside our front door at 10 days post-hatch:

I wasn't even kidding

2006-05-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

When I wrote last about coming unstuck, I really meant it. I quit my job today.

I have been working on making this happen foor quite awhile, saving up money and wavering back and forth as to whether I could even do it. And now that I have gone ahead and ripped the proverbial bandaid off, it feels like such an enormous relief. There are still petty politics to figure out, but I set my last day at May 31st.

While it was an incredibly INCREDIBLY (shall I emphasize this some more? *INCREDIBLY*) difficult decision, it had to be done and now it is. I will be a full-time student for the next year working on a paper for my degree that I plan to co-author with our director of international business programs and then publish. I'm also going for an ethics fellowship.

Most of all, though, I will have lots more time to play with wool. :) You couldn't see that coming at *all*, could you now? At least, I would be playing with wool if I could get it to fucking behave already. Witness Exhibit A of my own stupidity:

These are two Stormy Sky Stormy Sea singles attempting to be plied by yours truly. The problem? I spun one in one direction (let's call it S for fun) and the other in another direction (let's call that Z for continuity's sake). Why won't they ply? Why? WHY?? Well, because when you ply two singles together, you *ply* in the opposite direction that the single was spun. You do not *spin* the singles in different directions (which direction would you then ply? See the conundrum?).

A distance shot of the same disaster:

But aren't they such pretty bobbins?

That's the only reason I didn't take a match to the damn things.

Unstuck

2006-04-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Springtime is a time of love, right? The flowers, the bees, the birds all abuzz flittering this way and that, their hearts a-pitter-pattering along. It's a sweet image, no? Well my little bumblekinds, I have become unstuck and am back in love. With Rogue. I know, I thought our relationship was over too, but it turns out that it was just on hiatus. A little storm before the calm.

I picked it back up on Sunday night and am now most of the way done with the body. I also tried it on and it fits. Beautifully. Even though I am 20 pounds heavy right now. (Side note: I think I have gained weight because I had inadvertently been starving my body of nutrients by eating wheat and now that I am back to normal absorbtion I am holding onto every spare calorie I can. Just in case, you know, I start poinsoning myself again and all those nutrients disappear. I figure the weight will come off once my body stops trying to insulate itself against disaster.) The cables, they are so so pretty and challenging and *satisfying*. It is everything I ever wanted in a project.

I've also been washing fleece and spinning up a storm. I have an entire bobbin of the Stomy Sky Stormy Sea colorway spun up now as well as half a bobbin of Mimi. I was reading Woven Thoughts, though, and I might take the rest of Mimi's fleece and send it off to Morro Fleeceworks for pindrafting because those little beehives of fleece look so nifty and I'm not loving how hand-carded fleece turns out... It's sort of rough-looking which is a big contrast to how processed roving spins up (very smoothly because all the fibers are aligned in the same direction).

So without further ado, the pictures! Stormy Sky Stormy Sea all bobbined up and purdy:

And a closer look:

My Merino spinning has gotten a lot finer and more even as I've gotten used to it (quelle surprise!) so I may run into some guage problems when I ply it. We'll see.

I had a particularly hilarious time trying to photograph Rogue on me. Jon had just left for work, so I spent some quality time in front of the mirror (is that ever *not* quality time, though? I mean really. It's great to stare at yourself. Especially when you are me.)

Too much flash but the yarn color is accurate as is the color of my shower tile... (and I *know* I have to clean my mirror so to make for the better gazing at myself):

Thirteen years of ballet culminated in this one photo. I call it "Serious Sweater Dancer I":

Lily Tomlin knits... Who knew?

And finally, the "best" one:

I hope to finish Rogue this weekend. I'll keep you "posted" (oh ho ho ho HO!).

Tread(l)ing Water

2006-04-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

Dudes and dudtettes, I am projectless. I have totally given up on Rogue for the time being. The hat I started to knit out of Suede was so horrific I doubt even Mary-Kate Olson would wear it! My "So-Called Fugly-Ass Not-Long-Enough-So-I-Should-Probably-Just-Rip-It-Out-Anyways Scarf" is riding around in the bottom of my backpack untouched. The tomato orange baby sweater from Easy Knits for Cherished Babies is bo-RING and I'm almost disinterested enough in it to allow Heidi to continue playing with it in her quest for total yarn domination. I should really do a post with pictures of each one of my boring and failed projects, so y'all can see how not-lying I am.

In lieu of knitting, I have been spinning. I have a Corriedale fleece that I bought at the Crossfire Hill Farm sale that I have split into four distict tones from light gray to almost-black. My goal is to Andean-ply it into a DK or light worsted weight yarn and then make something like Jemima or the Union Square Market Pullover. I want to start with the light gray at the top and have it gradate (word? probably not...) down to dark gray at the bottom. It is my dearest futile hope that this design choice will maximize my (tiny) bust and minimize my (enormous) waist.

Unfortunately, to spin a 3-ply DK weight yarn, I have to spin singles that look like this:

Not so bad you say? Check it out as photographed by my massive telephoto lens:

Those guide hooks are 1/2 and inch in diameter. I appropriately titled this photo "Infuriating" on Flickr. I have been spinning this one bobbin for a week now. HATE IT. Hopefully the end product will be worth all this tedium.

Luckily for me (ha ha) I got kicked in the back by my friend's horse on Monday night, so I had all day yesterday to wander around in a Vicodin-induced haze and wash armloads of fleece. I am okay (just some very minor internal bleeding and a very nasty bruise complete with horseshoe nail marks, I shit you not) but we were at the ER until 2am while I got My First CT Scan and chest x-rays.

So I washed a 4+ pound corriedal ram fleece for E. and half of Mimi's fleece. I fully expected for the Corriedale to be really dirty, but Mimi's fleece, despite looking clean and lustrous, had to be washed twice and rinsed four times. It was truy disgusting. To add insult to injury (in so many ways) Mimi's fleece was not nearly as pretty once I had washed it. We'll just have to see how it cards up.

Spring's Gone Done Wore Me Out

2006-04-14T16:06:00.000-07:00

Lately the focus has been on spinning and carding and carding and spinning in my fiber world. Remember that big box o' fiber I posted a picture of a few weeks ago? The Coopworth from Oregon? Well, I have news for you: that box is fucking BOTTOMLESS. I card and I card and I card and I spin and I spin and I spin and I have barely made a dent (although it's been some of the most even spinning I've done yet). My cards are starting to feel like budduh (butter) and the carding is going quicker, though still eye-stabbingly slow.

I've felt incredibly bored and uninspired on the knitting front, on top of feeling tired in general. School is picking up, so to destress I stole my wheel back from E. Behold, My First Tweed (TM):

To be 3-plied with two strands of this:

As a side note, I am incredibly INCREDIBLY allergic to this wool. Every time I get to spinning it my eyes tear up and swell in protest and I sneeze and cough. Maybe *that's* why I feel like hell? Those little felted bits are the worst. Next time I make a tweed I am going to have to figure out another way to achieve the same effect.

The merino roving of last post is spinning up like this:

The variation is a little more pronounced than I'd like (although you can't see that in this picture). I'm planning on two-plying it only because I am an idiot and didn't believe experienced spinners when they said to hold off on the merino because it would be frustrating. Well, guess what? It totally is. Switching from the Coopworth to the Merino is a big change and I always end up re-learning how to deal with those short little merino fibers. They just fly out of my hands and they're so soft that I can barely hold on to them in the first place.

The last thing I slated for this lazy entry was a look at the 10lb present that came in the mail on Wednesday:

All the way from Kathy Davidson of Potosi Farm in Shrewsbury, PA... Kathy sent me 3 samples right after shearing and I just *had* to buy all three fleeces. They are:

This is from Halle, a little 7/8 Blue-faced Leicester lamb. Halle was kind enough to let me have her first fleece! I promise to love it well Halle; with a first fleece this beautiful I can't wait to see what next year's will look like.

This is 4 pounds of vegetation-rich 100% Blue-faced Leicester fleece from a little ewe named Delilah. I need to get combs to process this stuff (unless anyone has a better method for getting vegetation out) and then I plan to dye it. It's very soft, but what with the ultra-bleached tips and the VM (sounds like VD, don't it?) I think it would be better off dyed.

And here is the Belle of the Ball: Mimi. Kathy was kind enough to let me buy this Merino x Blue-faced Leicester x Lincoln fleece out of her private stash. It is incredibly lustrous and clean as a whistle. This fleece deserves to be left its natural colors. It spans from fawn to silver to black and feels like it barely even needs to be washed. Lucious, just lucious.

DNA

2006-04-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

This promises to be a very geeky post, so buckle your geekbelts. Oh my, I'm off to a wonderful start.

A little while ago, Jon was plugging along at his job as a web developer working through some particularly terrible legacy code. Being that he is a genius, he thought that all this wasted time on legacy code was silly, so he set about rallying the troops to design a new framework for all their pages. He dubbed his pet framework DNA and fought to get it implemented on all the company's sites. He eventually succeeded (why do people fight innovation so?) and last Friday they had a DNA party for Hug A Dev Day.

To celebrate the occasion, I made him this:

A blurrier look (I think you can see the cables better):

Jon showed off the pictures at work on Friday (the scarf was still at home blocking) and it was a hit. I was advised to "pick a number" that I would be willing to create. I am now on the hook for 6 more.

The Long Kiss Goodbye

2006-04-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

I must admit, I've been drifting listlessly in between several small and uninteresting projects lately. None of them really warrant any photos. One is a chenille hat that I've ripped twice in an effort to make it fit. One is a pair of socks in some wool I dyed myself. One is a baby sweater in bright orange (this one is a perennial project that has been in process for over a year). Rogue is pissing me off because I think I did something wrong, but I can't figure out how to fix it. Grrr.

Despite the improvement in my general well-being since I went on a gluten free diet 2 weeks ago (I do feel *tons* better), I've been feeling out of sorts lately. Like I've been on the edge of getting a cold, and totally tired. I even took a nap on Saturday afternoon. Jon was shocked.

Speaking of my dear husband, Jon is gone on a trans-continental field trip to schmooz with some hotshit web devs right now, so I've had a little more time to work on my knitting. And because I love and admire him, I am knitting him a special present, which hopefully he will wear (we don't have a good track record on this front). I promise I'll post a pic as soon as it's done (shouldn't be long now).

Last night while I was trying to keep myself busy so as not to think about the eleventy zillion ways a burgler could break into my house and kill me I dyed some wool. The first batch was some of the washed Coopworth I got from SuDan Farms in Oregon. I dyed it a nice jewel-toned blue and will felt it and then cut it up into bits to make tweed yarn.

The second was this:

It's a pound of Merino roving dyed in an attempt to look like a stoming sky and sea. I really love this. It's a big old mix of colors, but the four bases are Cushing's Copenhagen Blue, Ocean Green, and Jacquard Sapphire Blue and Gunmetal. I tempered each of the base colors with each other to varying degrees to get the muted tonal colors.

I've also been baking gluten-free bread machine bread:

That Strange Empty Feeling

2006-03-27T15:38:00.000-08:00

Downer time, kids... Today is my Dad's 60th birthday. At least it would have been if he was alive. He died last year on July 16th of a heart attack. I realized that today was his birthday this morning while I was in the shower. It's sad and I feel like I should call him and wish him a happy birthday, but I can't, so I talked to him a little bit instead. It always makes me feel strange to talk to my dad, because he was many different people (he suffered from bipolar disorder and alcoholism). So I talk to the dad I remembered when I was about 10 years old, before his various diseases made him the stranger he was when he died.

Unlike other people who I love and have passed over to the other side, I don't ever feel like my dad is around. I haven't ever felt his presence (although I've really tried, like in finance class last quarter when I really could have used his guidance...) and while it's disconcerting, I certainly understand. Dad and I weren't speaking to each other when he died. His alcoholism had gripped him hard and he was struggling. Unfortunately, he was very mean when his self-hatred was winning and I just couldn't stand there trying over and over to save him anymore.

After he died I found one of his journals and one of the entries from a few years ago when he was briefly sober ended with the line "If you ever want to find hell on earth, just start drinking." To see his ruined, crooked handwriting resume as he once again succumbed to his addictions was heartbreaking. I used to make him cards for his sobriety anniversaries; he saved every one.

I can't really say that I miss the dad of my teenage years, but I really do miss the dad of my childhood. He was a silly, creative, loving person who always had time for us (when he wasn't travelling for work) and used to let us do all sorts of stuff that most parents today would be appalled at. He took us snowcamping, we took roadtrips and shared the National Enquirer, we went skiing and kayaking and rock climbing... His death was a relief to him and to the family, but man, I miss my fun dad.

Here are some pics of fun dad and us as kids (I had to make it big so y'all could see):

My parents trekking:

This is my Dad's view; Cloud's Rest, Yosemite:

It's Shearin' Season!

2006-03-23T23:29:00.000-08:00

For most spring is heralded by bulbs blooming, the return of morning birdsong, the snowmelt, lighter days... But nothing says "SPRING!" to us fiber fiends like shearing season. It's an exciting time in the land of fiber as the junkies trawl the various websites of independent wool producers looking for that Golden Fleece. It could be Cormo, Alpaca, Merino or Vicuna, but nothing is more clear a sign of spring than sinking your hands into a nice raw fleece.

After a ridiculously long wait, I finally got my handcards on Tuesday. I love the cards, but I'm really disappointed in the store I got them from. The service was pretty abominable for the amount of money in roving and tools I spent with them (over $150). It's really neither here nor there, though, because my new Schacht cards rule. I could not be happier with them. Instead of a cotton backing, it's some sort of pleather and they're way more fantasticer. Here they are with Coopworth Rolags from SuDan Farm in Oregon:

You can see the difference between the uncarded fleece and my rolags here:

After carding about 20 rolags, I realized this was going to spin up into a damn yooglay yarn (or at least a damn boring one), so I looked up in one of my spinning books how to make a tweed yarn and I am TOTALLY making this into a tweed. I'm thinking the tweed flecks will be a pretty steel blue to offset the blue/gray/brown of the fleece.

I've been working on this entry for 4 days...and I have just run out of steam. So with that, I leave you with a pretty spring bouquet:

Not So Okay...

2006-03-20T16:26:00.000-08:00

Well kids, the biopsies came back and as it turns out, I in an advanced stage of Celiac Disease. Also called celiac sprue, it means that I can no longer eat any gluten whatsoever for the rest of my life. No more fried calimari at the Cheesecake Factory, no more birthday cake, no more bread, no more pasta, no more breakfast pastries... The list is truly endless.

The short of it is the Celiac Disease (CD) is a genetic autoimmune disease. I have always had it at some level, but it wasn't until my body was so extremely stressed after the death of my dad and grandad last summer that my immune system couldn't handle fighting the poison I was feeding myself (eating gluten triggers a toxic response) *and* keeping me generally healthy. So it stopped fighting the gluten and I got sick. Really sick. And it sucked.

Lucky for me, it is easier to live with celiac than ever before. It used to be that you would need to buy most of your grain-food through mail order. I went into Whole Foods on Friday and was wandering around looking at the entire grocery store like it was out to poison me and I asked a person there what in the world I could do. She pointed me to several hot-spots in the store for gluten-free food, but then said (I love this) that I should just call and make an appointment with the special diets grocery buyer and they'll take me through the whole store and show me what I can eat. How fucking cool is that?? I was amazed.

This weekend Jon and I headed out to E. And T.'s family cabin for some relaxation with another couple of our best friends, M. and B. The babies were in attendence (although the dogbaby stayed at daycare because it would be just too much to have him as well as the baby boys) and they were cute as can be. It made me want to kick up the baby knitting again. Jon was interested in caring for the little ones and learning what he could... It was very cute. He is goign to be an awesome dad.

Because we were away from civilization, I got a lot of knitting time. We also brought up the spinning wheel and lots of wool. I taught E. to Navajo ply (she's a spinning natural!) and M. loves to watch us go. At one point, I was spinning and B. remarked what a peaceful sound the wheel makes. I couldn't agree more; it's such an old, organic, soothing sound it never fails to relax me instantly. I 2-plied for the first time and made this:

Here's a closer look:

This is what the very first Corriedale that I ever dyed turned into. I am completely in love with it!

Meanwhile Rogue, she progresses:

And here's Huxley making biscuits. Off the knitting, cat!

I'm okay you're okay

2006-03-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

The tests turned out okay. There is definitely stuff that I need to address, but the biopsies that were taken don't look like the C-word (although I'll know for sure tomorrow). I might even be able to grow up and just call it cancer. I really wasn't expecting to feel as sick as I did after the tests though. They sedate you into unconsciousness and as it turns out, that is tough to recover from. Who knew? Certainly not me, as the last time I was sedated I was 16 and having my wisdom teeth broken out of my head. It was a fun time. Really.

So I have spent the last two days recovering. And my little doglet kept me company being a good and sleepy 2-year old the entire time. I was really impressed. Animals just seem to know, you know? It's high time I show you a picture of Oslo (this is his favorite napping position):

God my dog is cute!

Rogue is coming along really well. I may very well be in love. I'm 2/3 of the way up the body (12 rows left before I split for the armholes). This may even be a sweater that I would knit again. I'm planning on finishing it this weekend when we are out at our friends' cabin on the Sound. E. and M. will be there (we're bringing the boys, all 5 of them, too) and we'll be cozy as little bugs in rugs. Hopefully we can take time to spin and knit and chat and I can snuggle with my two most favorite babies in the world, little N. and C.. We'll be leaving the dogbaby at home, though, because although he loves the beach, he is a bit of a terror when there's lots of wool around.

Lazy Sunday

2006-03-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

Today is the best kind of day for waking up late and then sitting around knitting with a big cup of tea.... Tomorrow I have to do some pretty invasive and scary medical tests and I'm not allowed to eat after noon-thirty today. The worst part of it all is that I just don't know how they are going to turn out. They aren't looking fo rthe C-word, but there is always a remote chance that I could have malignant cell growth. Jon is staying with me for the next two days and even went out to the video store last night to get the craptacularist movies he could find (Elizabethtown and The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants). Although to his credit he also picked up March of the Penguins and The Smartest Guys in the Room.
In knitting news, I am monogamously plugging away at Rogue. I decided to omit the pocket and just make it a pullover. The cashmerino seems to be a good choice (so far), but I'm only two balls in (14 to go), so we'll see. I think Rogue will be beautiful in some of my handspin and I may use the new charcoal gray Coopworth fleece that I got to make it in the future.

My only problem with Rogue is that it is knit in the round and I am used to knitting cables "in the flat", so I finish one row of the chart, knit the rest of the front, get to the other side where I am supposed to repeat that same chart row, but my brain skips to the next one. I can't even tell you how many times I have had to frog the damn thing and I am only 22 rows into the first chart. I may not have the attention span to make another one, eh? :)

So wish me luck tomorrow, if they do their jobs correctly I'll be so sedated that I won't remember it.

Wheelless (It's a word, I swear)

2006-03-07T19:19:00.000-08:00

I have lent out my wheel to get my friend E. addicted to spinning post-haste. It is going well so far; she has spun almost an entire bobbin and I've left her with half a pound of Clun and an ounce each of Merino, Corriedale, Blue-faced Leicester and some hand-dyed Finn. I am an evil devil who is trying to lift ~$400 from her husband's wallet. I can't be stopped! Muwuhahaha.

All that to say I'm rather bored. Finals are this week and next week, so school is occupying a lot of my time. Work has been particularly trying lately (oh well) and I come home gritting my teeth most days. Thank god I have a wonderful husband who never seems to run out of hugs, kisses and back rubs. Yes, he's awesome and no, you can't have him; he's mine.

I finished a scarf in the My So-Called Scarf stitch pattern. It is rather awesome, if I do say so myself. Looky looky:

I can't find the label for the yarn right now, but my review of it is that it is pretty but scratchy and overpriced.

I have also cast on Rogue in Cashmerino color Grass. I need a challenging knit right now to take my mind off the suckage that is my job. I'm frustrated and when I get frustrated I get ambitious (that is how I roped myself into going to grad school...). I think Rogue is a perfectly appropriate choice. Experienced cables? No problem. Bring it ON, bitches!

Cheapskate Niddy Noddy

2006-03-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all, I thought I would take a break from my busy day of school and pullng my eyelashes out one by one to bring you a cheap and easy-to-make-yourself niddy noddy alternative. I know that you are crafty, so this really shouldn't be any big revelation (but I still thought it complicated enough to take pictures of every single stop. Yay pendantry!).

K, so take an ordinary pants hanger from the dry cleaner:

I know, my couch cushions need some new fabric. It's a really pretty modern couch, just someone made an incorrect upholstery decision some years back. Those are ratty old saddle pad pieces that my cats use as a bed as well. I'm all about the class at my house.

Then disconnect the rod from it (this may take some tugging):

You should now have this (pendantry, you are my mistress):

Bend the edges up to make a holder area (if you have pliers, you can bend those hook-y ends in so that they don't catch, but it's pretty hard to do just with your bare hands and we're bare hands kind of folk here at Midnattgry Acres). You should also bend the hangy part in so that it's easier to wind the yarn/singles onto it (they catch otherwise and it becomes annoying *really* quick):

I've only got one end bent here so for to show zee steps better. Now they multiply!

And now we wind the skein! I prefer to steam my yarn instead of full-on wet blocking and these hanger niddy noddies are great for that because they seem to disperse heat very well.

And that is all for today. Tune in next time when I tediously teach people to do something else.

Gold Medalist!

2006-02-28T22:04:00.000-08:00

I totally finished the Lace Leaf for the KnitLympics (TM). We went from ignoring the project on Saturday:

To crappy grafting (Knitty's instructions led me surprisingly awry...):

To finished product! (Albeit I finished during the closing ceremonies...):

Now, there are several things wrong with this sweater. The first was my choice of yarn. This pattern is way too structured for the drapey-ness of the alpaca yarn I chose. The lace leaf details pull in weird directions and the twisted rib just kind of pooches up. It's unfortunate, really, but I did learn a couple of things: how to graft stitches and how to make a raglan sleeve. Above all else, I finished my first properly-made sweater! Woo!

Now for another accomplishment this week:

My first plied yarn! This is the Blue-faced Leicester that I spun earlier this month. I'm really pleased with the color variation and it's soft as a cloud. There's not enough of it to make anything useful (maybe some baby boots or a baby hat), but I could not care less. I am completely ecstatic! WOOOHOOOO! :)

I've got about 10 pounds of raw fleece from the farm sale at Crossfire Hill from the weekend and another 3 pounds of washed Coopworth coming from Oregon. The hand cards are ordered and the tensioned Lazy Kate is on its way. The next project is a sweater from fleece to finished.

My Best Friend

2006-02-23T20:53:00.000-08:00

As we all know, I have been spinning up a storm as well as staying ahead of schedule for my Olympic knitting. Tonight, Jon and I were supposed to go out for a special dinner at a fancy-pants French restaurant (Campagne for those of you in Seattle). But at 5pm or so, we AIMed each other and both of us had tummy aches; hardly what you want to have when preparing to eat an expensive meal of foie gras. We mutually decided to stay home tonight instead and go out on Saturday night when we are both feeling a little less like we drank a smoothie of battery acid, hummus and entrails.

Secretly, I wanted to stay home, try my hand at Navajo plying with the Blue-faced Leicester that I dyed the other night, knit on the Lace Leaf and watch figure skating. So I came home, kissed my husband and sat down at the wheel. I don't have a tensioned lazy kate and within minutes, I was ready to shoot myself learning to navajo ply. I called desperately to Jon and the dear sweet man that he is, he sat on the floor and held a finger to the bobbin on the lazy kate to create the tension I needed.. I'm not sure that he can get any more perfect than he already is, folks. Who's husband sits on the floor for a half an hour helping his wife to create her very first plied yarn? My husband, that's who. Simply an amazing man.

Except that it gets better. Today at lunch, this arrived at my office:

It's like the cake that was in the anniversary party scene in "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (one of my favorite and most-quoted movies) where Mike Myers proposes to Nancy Travis.

Thank you muffin pants, you are the best husband in the entire world and I am the luckiest girl in the world to have you. Happy 3rd (8th) Anniversary; I can't wait to be with you for the rest of my life.

Absence

2006-02-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

I'm a bad bad blogger. Still daunted by the process of posting, I have been neglecting Midnattgry. I apologize, really, I do.

There are a million pictures to post, but I'm currently on the wrong computer. (I'll post them to this post later tonight). I spent the entire weekend dyeing pounds of roving, spinning, and knitting the Lace Leaf Sweater as my Olympics project. While it's a really quick knit, the lace leaf chart in the book is sorts of screwed up. I ended up revising it a different way each of the three times I knit it. It was pretty ridiculous. I now have only half a sleeve to go and then I start grafting (a big challenge for me) and assembling (I also suck at that). I've knit it in Misti Bulky Alpaca in this beautiful merlot color. Everyone else seems to choose green or blue for this sweater and while I really wanted to do it in teal (the LYS was 2 skeins short), the merlot is really quite stunning.

This weekend, I am heading out to Crossfire Hill Farms (look! I made a link! I didn't tell you to Google it like a lazy, lazy slothful ho!) for their annual fleece sale. I'm gonna get me a fleece! I'm looking for a nice gray of a decent size (which for me means big enough to felt at least a third of it in the first washing mishap and then still have enough left over to make a sweater). Their Corriedales look big, well-coated and the farm is near enough to my house that I am reallyreallyreally excited about dragging my husband out to an island on a cold and rainy sunday to look at sheep and the fleece thereof. I promise to take lots of pictures and actually post them, how's *that*?!

Life in general lately has been rather uneventful, I suppose. I've been kinda bummed with work, but excited and challenged at school, so at least there's a balance. Mario and I are doing well with our riding lessons (he's such a giant dork, when I turn him out with his best friend Doc, you would never guess that they were 22 and 18, respectively). The doglet is having an acid reflux problem, we think. He keeps gagging like he's choking on something, but I can't find anything in his throat (either from the inside or the outside) and he licks his lips like a fiend while he's coughing.

I'm also thinking of forming a Northwest Spinning Guild. Even though I am new to spinning, it seems like an activity I could handle. There isn't currently a guild in the NW, and I think that's a low-down dirty crying shame, since there are obviously so many spinners up here (how else can you explain 3 of the 4 main LYS's carrying a wide range of rovings?). Not that anyone is reading this (I would never *presume*), but if you are and you are in the NW and would like t form a guild, drop me a comment and let's get this sucker rolling!

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(The next day....) Here are the pics I promised!

The beauteous "Quince and Daffs" celebration of spring colorway:

Here it is in my cat-proof storage box:

My Lace Leaf sweater from Loop-d-Loop, the bestest Olympic knitting project I ever did pick:

Sign that you May Need A Swift and Ball-Winder; STAT!

Jesus!

Knitting Schizophrenia

2006-02-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

Life has been a little ridiculous lately. E. had her darling son last Tuesday and he and mom are happy and healthy and just beautiful. It always makes me tear up when a new baby comes to my circle of friends; they are so wonderful and new and soft. It's great to be able to watch my friends just glow with their happiness. Marriages are reinforced, new bonds with their friends and family are forged, it's a beautiful time.

Okay, that's enough of the schmaltz, I'm such a damn sap. On to the fiber!

I've been spinning lately... Yes, it's bad bad bad. I got an Ashford Traditional Scotch Tension Single Treadle (sheesh! so many specifications!) wheel for Christmas, and I had my first spinning class at The Weaving Works last Saturday morning. I thought I would love it and I *totally* did. A guest post series on dying roving by Laurie on Yarn Harlot was what drove me to spinning. That entire dye series was so beautifully done and compelling that I just had to try it for myself. Here is a pic of the first dye lot (Corriedale top, for those who care):

The green and brown is the Corriedale, the red/blue is Icelandic and the big Ball O' White is Clun.

So, drumroll please, here is the first bobbin of homespun from the Corriedale (the bottom bobbin):

The middle is the (badly spun) Clun and the top bobbin is the Wensleydale from my spinning class.

The Icelandinc is now on the wheel and although it is far more challenging to spin (the fibers are longer and they don't stick together as well):

I am totally in love with the colors in this yarn. It's like a desert sunset and I just sing every time I spin some of it up. Just in case anyone wants to know, I use Cushings acid dyes.

K, time to run off to watch Lost!

Phew!

2006-01-29T17:26:00.000-08:00

I've finished the Impossibly Complicated Baby Sweater just in the nick of time. My dear friend E. is contracting as I type this, ready to welcome her son into the world. And he will have knitting! After much freaking out and brow-furling, I have deciphered the unncessarily complicated Sirdar 1555 Sweater and Hat pattern. I made some changes but didn't document them because *I* will not be knitting this pattern again and I think it would be a crime against the knitting community if I published changes that somehow make this pattern work. No knitter, regardless of how masochistic they are, deserves the pain of this pattern.

So, we went from this:

To this:

Note the dizzying pattern:

But it has truly beautiful buttons:

I have been knitting on this sweater for 5 months and I can't actually believe it's done. I actually called my dear friend about 3 seconds after I cut the last end after tucking it in and exclaimed "The knitting's done! You can have the baby now!".

Indeed.

The Deal

2006-01-24T07:21:00.000-08:00

Okay party people, here's the deal: I don't add photos to my blog because I am scared to death of Flickr. I know, I am completely pathetic (especially since I am married to a web developer, and because I work for a software company, and because I just bought myself a new top-o-the-line computer [Dual Core Intel iMac] yesterday, etc etc, lots of other techy reason for patheticy).

I've been doing lots of homework and knitting. I've also been feeling ill (again) which I think is a perfectly valid reason to have a temper tantrum and go out and buy yourself a new computer. My husband, he who is in love with the New Toy, thinks so as well. I could barely get my home work done last night after he came home from work because he was busy watching movie trailers and exclaiming every 10 seconds "Your computer is FAST!".

So my resolution today is that I will spend my finance class (we are having some boring speaker dude) figuring out how to easily post pictures so this will not be such a boring 'blog. It's really a self-serving goal since The Impossibly Complicated Baby Sweater is *still* not done, and I can't figure out what the hell the pattern is saying and I am beginning to suspect that the baby it is intended for is waiting for his knitting to be done before he makes his debut (which is really unfair to his mama...) and I need outside HELP.

Weekend Knitting

2006-01-21T17:18:00.000-08:00

I always find that the weekend is a time when I get in over my head with my knitting and spinning (not that I can really spin all that well yet). On saturday morning I awake full of creative vigor, just waiting to finish a project/start a project/design a project/dye a pound of roving/spin a hundred yards of 1-ply, etc. I then go to my riding lesson (yes, I know I'm spoiled, please don't bother to point it out) and come home with half the day gone and frantic to get started creating.

The problem is that I never make any progress. I end up casting on something and knitting an inch of it while thinking of the 12,000 other things I wanted to do with fiber in my short 48 hours of freedom. It's distracting and ultimately rather, well, unproductive.

This weekend, however, I actually started *and* finished a project. It's the Dreadlock Poncho using Fleece Artist "Dreadlocks" in colorway "Origins". I'm not entirely thrilled with the color of it, but I am completely thrilled by the idea that I have finished something for once in my scattered life.

To be fair to myself, I knit a baby hat (with a darling leaf attached to its top stem) in Cashmerino during the baby shower I hosted last Sunday, but do you know how long a hat in size "Newborn" takes? Not a real sense of accomplishment there... I love the book "Last-Minute Knitted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson for the sole reason that I can start and finish her projects in a few days. Nevermind the fact that I never actually *gift* them to anyone.

(Side note: I was trying to think of a present to give one of my very best friends for Christmas and I was so desperate that I actually considered opening up my stash and letting her choose a yarn that she'd like me to make something out of. About 15 minutes before she arrived at my house, I ran down the street to the bookstore to buy an alternate gift because I just could not bear to part with any my stash yarn. Yes I am selfish and hoard-y. Shut up.)

Okay, enough of this rambling entry. Next project up? A felted circular needle holder. I'm knitting it without a pattern; wish me luck.

Silly Beanhead

2006-01-15T20:30:00.000-08:00

I am a complete silly bean head. It has been, what? Three months since I've posted? Even *I* don't read my blog!!

Tonight, having just given a baby shower for one of my dearest friends, I am exhausted and dodging my homework. Sitting in my favorite char listening to Norah Jones and thinking about what project I should pick back up. I know it should be The Impossibly Complicated Baby Sweater, but I just can't bring myself to it. I was going to have it finished for the shower today (ha!). That was a little bit of an, um, optimistic goal. So I ended up knitting a little white cashmerino hat with a green knit leaf attached to it as a consolation prize. My new goal is to have the sweater done by the time the baby arrives (any day now!).

I was just down in San Francisco last week and I made a $160 stop at Art Fibers (too lazy to link, just google it). What a fantastic place! I picked up some of their Kyoto and some Houdini and all sorts of other stuff, including a yarn that is made of 35% stainless steel. How cool is that?? Furthermore, the owner of Art Fibers is super nice and we talked for nearly an hour while she helped me hone in on my (massive) selection. I have to think it was fate that my company booked me at a hotel in San Francisco that was on the same block as one of the coolest yarn shops in the entire city... I'll post pictures of my haul a little later. Or maybe once I do things with it.

Between my master's degree and my job and my family and my pets, I am having a hard time staying healthy, which is most of the reason that I haven't posted recently. At the end of November I got shingles and then at the end of December I got a kidney infection. All that was after a week-logn stay in the hospital due to a Staph MRSA infection in September. To say the least, I have not been in a good state. Now I'm fully medicated and ready to move past the sick era of my life. The only problem is that I'm not sure I can do that while maintaining my current activity roster. I really do love my line of work and my horse and my knitting and school (shuddup, I actually really do like school!) and I'm not sure I can chose to scale back without feeling like I've failed in some way by not being able to do it all. As it is, though, I am running myself into the ground and worrying my husband and my family. I promised my husband after the shingles that I would make some sort of change to lessen the stress level in my life if I got sick again. Two weeks later with the kidney infection, that airy promise turned into reality. It's hard to take that as anything but a sign...

These next few weeks will be especially important in my deciding what in the world to do. We'll see what I come up with.

I am a knitting nutball

2005-10-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, seriously? I have too many projects going right now. I am in complete WIP paralysis. Let me run them down for you, eh?

First up is yummy natural brown chunky wool sweater. This sweater will never get done. Ever. It was the first thing I started. I actually got the yarn from the woman who owns the Romney X herd whose wool it is and then spins it herself. I was vacationing with my family on Cortes Island, BC and I happened to notice these beautiful skeins of luscious chocolate brown wool in a local craft shop. I asked where I could get more and was given the phone number of Joy Shipway. Joy invited me down to the farm where I met these darlings:

And then I created this from their wool:

I will never finish this. I was originally going to do a celtic knot adapted from the Viking Turid pattern in "The Best of Knitters Arans & Celtics" but that looked crappy. So I ripped out the front and am going to go for a big braid up the middle. It doesn't look like much now, but hoo boy! I had grand dreams for this yarn INDEED.

Next up is the Impossibly Complicated Baby Sweater. I have been knitting this for a month now and I need to finish it before November when the impending baby's mom will be having her baby shower. It is a Sirdar pattern, and while I usually like them, this one is driving me nuts.

See? I have a hell of along way to go. I can't even imagine how I am going to make an entire sweater out of this tiny tiny yarn. Jesus, I must be really nuts. But wait! My yarn-induced psychosis! It goes deeper! I have this set of three "curly" scarves to knit out of Crystal Palace Kid Mohair before Christmas. The pattern ends up being 720 stitches and let me tell you, folks, that is a LOT of binding off to do.

I have 4 (or more) projects to outline. More insanity tomorrow (when I will show you the most tempting yarn in my stash, and no, it is not the beautiful red Fleece Artist Handmaiden kit I have waiting in there).

Hi Folks!

2005-10-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the second iteration of this blog. This morning I went through all of my old, broody posts and deleted them. This is now a knitting blog, y'all! (Although I reserve the right to totally talk about my life outside knitting as it is filled with excitement! and fun!) I have joined the masses and will finally post about all of the lovely things that I make whenever I have a free moment and my hands are not occupied with luscious yarn.

I will post later about the fantastic Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, Fleece Artist and Crystal Palace Kid Mohair I bought this weekend (and what they'll turn into). I have about 73245798634698374967972345920938845 projects going right now, so there's lots to write about!

Now, off to school (where, duh, I knit while recording the lecture)...