Frogging Makes Me Cry

So I'd been working on a shawl (kiri) that I started last fall, worked on in CA, and then put down in November for reasons I no longer recall. I somehow decided that it would be a good project to work on on the bus from Philly to NY, where I was going to spend Passover with my mom's side of the family (because they're always SO MUCH FUN and NOT STRESS-INDUCING AT ALL, especially when all the rest of my life was dissolving into a flaming pile of sulfur). Anyway, I hadn't touched the shawl in nearly 6 months, but I had my trusty lifeline, so it would all be fine, right?

Well, somehow I managed to err in such a way that my stitch count stayed right despite messing up the pattern. Except I didn't know I'd made a mistake, and thought everything was fine (because the stitch count was okay) and yanked the lifeline. You can see where this is going.

The kiri shawl is supposed to have a row of eyelets straight up the center. You can see how they started doing just that on my shawl here:


However, upon closer inspection:


Sigh. I tried to save it, but I was not capable of picking up a row under the error properly. So I had the JC our me a glass of wine for fortification and I frogged the whole thing. It was traumatic. I can usually fudge my way through a mistake but "misaligned center row of eyelets" is the kind of glaring and unfixable mistake I can't make better.

So here's the yarn again:

It's not the yarn's fault, the yarn is lovely. The yarn is experiencing new life as the start of an Icarus.
I'm not sure if I'll try Kiri again - it's not a difficult pattern at all, I'm just an idiot.

Let this be a lesson: do not pick up a lace project after a six-month hiatus on the Greyhound to a family even that you are dreading when you're also stressed about everything else in your life and think you can take out the old lifelines. That's just asking for a tearful wine-laden frog event.


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Now playing: Great Lake Swimmers - Your Rocky Spine
via FoxyTunes

FO Fest

I hereby present my backlog of finished projects that I have been too overwhelmed by grad school badness to post of late:

First off, I finished the Fetchings that were my emergency Thanksgiving project:

please pardon the craptacular lab lighting. Though it is apropos as they live in the always-freezing microscope room, wherein I spend altogether too much time.

Next up, my sister requested a hat for Hanukkah. Two days before the holiday ended. Ahem. She got it mid-January, which I find to be a perfectly acceptable time frame.

Pattern can be found here. Really easy and pretty fast to knit.

I also finished my first sweater. Which technically is my fourth sweater, but the first I actually managed to finish. Thanks to Gerald for taking the picture, that's the D floor conference room across the hall from lab and our closest source of actual natural light.


Having liked cabling my sister's hat so much, I made a cabled hat for me. Somehow all of the hats I had made in the past were not black. Astonishing! So I made one:

It's from SNBN and was really easy.

Finally, I also finished a pair of socks:

They're the Falling Leavessocks from Knitty awhile ago. The best part of having wee size 5 1/2 feet is that it only took one ball of Lorna's Laces to make actual socks!

Knitting makes me so much happier than lab. Obviously.

In Which I Talk About Home and Hockey

So I went home for Thanksgiving and I brought the JC with me. And while I'd warned him many times just how small the town is, I don't think he was quite prepared for the actual rural-ness of it. To the point that he compared it to cottage country in northern Ontario.

Anyway, I only brought one knitting project. Which was a bad idea as I got to the airport for my flight home and discovered that my size 0 circular needle that I was knitting my socks on had broken. Now, usually I use metal needles because they don't break but I'd specifically bought long narrow wooden circs because I've been doing so much damn flying lately (knitpicks fixed Harmony circs for those of you who are interested) as the skinny little addis are kinda threatening and quite visible on the airport Xray machines. And yes, I know the TSA allows knitting needles, but must screeners are twits and sometimes it's better just to play it safe. So I had NO knitting. And of course my flight home was delayed. Because I wasn't stressed enough already.

Ouch!

Of course, the small LYS at home didn't have a long size 0 circular needle and as it isn't solely a knitting store, the old lady who worked there looked at me like I was on crack when I asked, so I called the yarn store in Brocton, who also didn't have one but at least had someone working who knew what the hell I was talking about. Not being able to deal with my family and the return flight totally sans knitting, I actually went to the Brocton store and got the supplies for an emergency project, the much-knitted Fetchings.


I've already finished the left one. Anyway, I can't say enough nice things about the Brocton yarn store (Woolgathering) - they have a great selection, long hours, and the owner is really nice and apparently offers spinning lessons too. Having knitting made the flight back far more pleasant, a sentiment the JC agrees with.

Anyway, while home I gave the JC the grand tour of...not much. And I even dragged him to BJ's, where I only saw one person I knew from high school (and one I liked at that) so that was good, plus there were dollar pints! And I made a pie for Thanksgiving that turned out mostly okay, though it was HUGE:
So huge that the lattice didn't really work out. Anyway, it's the pomegranate-pear pie from the NYT last year and it's worth a shot...though don't use the pearl tapioca! It was weird having it with my mom because we've been going to dad's the past few years, but she threw such a fit that we sort of had to not go to dad's, which was too bad.

But we spent all Friday with dad - we went into Buffalo for the art museum and the hockey game. Which we spent in a luxury box, which was awesome. And Jim Kelly was in the box next to us! He's going quite bald. My phone crapped out so I took a very blurry pic of the back of his head with the JC's crackberry, but it's so bad it isn't even worth posting. In the box with me was another kid from high school, who despite having the same last name is not the Retropolitan's cousin. And we even won! While my dad's seats are great, the luxury box wins if only because it has a private bathroom. Stadium bathroom lines are so not okay. And that's one classmate at the bar and one at the game, which isn't bad. Though on a related note, I got the save the date card for my 10-year reunion. Ick.

The JC survived my family and my town, and they survived him. Which I suppose is good. I hadn't been back in nearly a year. It's so odd going back - so different from how I live now. With all my urban amenities, like mass transit and stores other than Wal-Mart and being able to drive for two miles without hitting a farm. Though you can buy beer in the grocery store at home, which is an amenity I sorely miss.

Anyway, I'm mostly glad to be back in Philly. With much knitting to choose from.

Gusset

I may have a new preferred sock heel. After finally having mastered the short-row heel with a minimum of tiny holes, I decided to try the toe-up gusset heel. I'd avoided the gusset because I suck sweaty goat balls at picking up stitches, hence I avoid it, deepening the sweaty-goat-ball cycle. But this heel - no stitches to pick up! No wrapping and forgetting to pick up said wraps! This heel is so idiot-proof I didn't even have to keep track of what row I was on. Pattern here.



It's probably hard to see the detail because the yarn is so dark (who me? in black?) but believe me: it rocks.

In other news, I have no idea how I'm going to finish by June as I've been working my sweet ass off and still don't seem to be getting everything I want to done, all the while losing my grip on sanity. I require an awful lot of downtime in order to suppress my homicidal urges. I'm going to San Diego for SFN and then the JC and I are going up to San Francisco in a brief vacation that was planned before this crazy committee mess. And my dad came down, and they met. Then his dad came down and we met. Except that my dad had told me a few weeks in advance that he was coming and his dad called from an hour outside Philly without any warning. In my family, we'd refer to that as a "nervous breakdown" but apparently in theirs it is normal vacation behavior to just cross international boundaries on a whim. And I've been spending all my spare non-science non-bellydance time on Ravelry still. To the detriment of getting actual knitting accomplished. Mmm, yarn porn!

Not Dead, Still Knitting

I have no good reason for not posting in eons, especially since I finally got a new laptop in May. Except for that bit where I spent two months using said laptop to play Civ 3, which I randomly found in my apartment having never played it before. Oops.

Still knitting, though. And I finally got my ravelry invite, so I'm really inspired to...knit more! And buy piles of yarn! It's great, and anyone with a ravelry account please friend me, it's neurochic over there. That site is like crack. Knitting crack.

And here is a lovely project I just finished:

Yes, my legs are that pasty even in August. They're the ever-popular Jaywalker socks, though I did them toe-up and with a short-row rather than gusset heel. And I am so in love with that colorway!

In other news, the JC and I are still together somehow, I hate science, the lab still has no money, and I'm beginning to get antsy about finishing. And I got an awesome internship doing editing and some editorial stuff at a scientific journal (the JCI, for those of you who are interested) and it's awesome! So I'm actually working on getting some sort of career together just on the off chance I ever finish this cursed Ph.D.

I promise to blog more. Really. If only for my own sanity.

Still Knitting

I realized that I haven't posted anything crafty lately despite knitting a bunch. or at least feeling like I'm knitting a bunch.

So here is a lovely scarf I made:



It's supposed to be cherry leaves. I don't know if it looks like them, but it does sort of look like leaves and that's enough for me.

In other news, lab sucks, things with the JC are going surprisingly well, I hate Passover, and I have to pay my damn taxes. Adulthood is no fun.

More Knitting, and a Little Tim

I think I'm on a purple kick lately. To wit, my newest hat:



and the awesome top view:



I need to stop making hats. But there are still more hat patterns I'd like to do. And alas, we're having a freakishly warm year. Damn global warming. The lack of cold almost makes me want to go home more. At least there, it still snows in October. As it should.


Speaking of home, my dad was hospitalized again as the drugs to control his heart weren't working. So they tried to shock his heart back into a normal rhythm a few times. That hasn't worked either, so they released him with more drugs and the promise of future heart-shockings. Of course, the longer his heart stays broken, bad things are more likely to happen.

And finally, I caught Tim this weekend. It is very nice to no longer have to swab rat vaingas every day! Alas, Tim was boring. I am really sick of hearing about the Iraq Study Group and if I never have to see James Baker's jowly face again, that's fine with me. And Tim's hair was not in a good state. For that, I could've gone in and done rat vaginas. Well, maybe.

More Socks and a Brilliant Idea

I finished another pair of socks, though I don't like the feel of how these ones knit up. Must be the yarn. Anyway, they have purple, grey, and blue stripes but for some reason my camera doesn't seem to be capable of accurately photographing purple. Boo!



I will never make another fully ribbed leg again. It was boring, yet a little slow going (I'm just not a fast purler, I guess) and just no fun eventually. Though I learned a new stretchy cast-off method, so that was good.

I found an old videotape of stuff taped off TV from the CFEx era (the label was in his handwriting) that included, among other things, the Barenaked Ladies episode of Behind the Music. It is from that late era of Behind the Music, when they'd already covered all the bands with really big problems (like, say, waking up on the floor with the needle still hanging out of one's arm) and were left with "well, they were big in Canada but Americans just weren't into it!" And then someone got leukemia, which was sad, but he lived, so whatever. Anyway, there was a lot of old footage of them with their cute little Canadian accents and from their old shows. In which, among other antics, they performed many early-to-mid-nineties dances. Like the running man and the one where you hold your foot and sort of jerk your knee backwards and the one where you jump through the loop you create by holding onto your leg. And I got a brilliant idea: with the current resurgence of very bad 80s fashion (stirrup pants are seriously back, people!) the early nineties is obviously the Next Big Thing. And while fashion-wise it may be grunge that comes back, I think we may have a full-on early nineties trend. In preparation for that era, I think I should make a workout tape (or DVD, I suppose) of all the early nineties spastic-looking dances. Because the running man is a workout, people! And then you could take your newfound/recently discovered moves to the clubs in your baby doll dress and combat boots and you could be the awesomest person there! And I'd be rich!

Who wants to be on the early list for my background dancers?

A Lesson in Combining Alcohol and Handknits

I've been on a hat kick lately - I think I really, really want winter to come.

The first hat I ever made myself was a black one with cat ears from the first SnB book. I got a lot of compliments. Then I wore it out to Sex Dwarf, where I (of course) got obnoxiously drunk and somehow lost it. So let that be a lesson to all of you: if you are going to be drinking so much that your friends will have to literally carry you up to bed, perhaps you shouldn't wear anything you made. Or at least anything you made that you actually like. Because you may lose it in the cab. Or you may barf on it (which hasn't happened to me yet but may, at some point). I made other hats in the interim - like the Nautilus hat - but I really liked my old ear one. It was cute, plus it had earflaps! SO I made myself another one, and it looks way better than my old one did:


Please ignore my unmade bed. Well, futon. I'm totally in love with that yarn - the Malabrigo worsted weight. In fact, I went back and bought more because I have plans for mittens and maybe a scarf. It is really, really soft, which is good because I made the original kitty hat out of Cascade 220 and thought it was a little itchy. The color in the picture is bluer than it is in person - it is really more purple and black.

I will not be wearing this hat to Sex Dwarf, Immediate, Beatles and Stones, or any of those other places where I tend to drink far too much, dance around, and wind up cabbing home. Only to places where I don't drink too much or where I drink too much but get to keep my coat and such on my person and can walk home. Really.

Adventures in Central Time

I went to Chicago this weekend. Somehow I'd managed never to visit before. It was a really awesome city and it is now on my list of "places I might possibly be able to tolerate living in." While there I got to see my uncle, who is fun and showed me around his neighborhood, and the CFEx, who took me to a bar filled with hipsters. The CFEx is not currently sporting any outlandish facial hair, though he was wearing skinny jeans and Vans slip-ons. But he has to, he's an MFA student now. I also got to go to the Renegade Craft show which wasn't quite as fun as I was expecting (too many ironic screenprinted T-shirts, not enough wacky knitting goodies) and see a bunch of crafty people, some of whom I'd met before and others I hadn't.

In Chicago, they have dirty dirty street signs:


I also got to (try to) teach people to knit:


Because while I may be Jewish, I will spread the gospel of the goodness of the knitting wherever I may go.

It would've been nice had BOTH my flights not been delayed, but I did get an awful lot of airport terminal knitting done. In fact, I now just have 8 rounds left on a really neat hat that I only had about two inches done on when I left. Thankfully, the TSA didn't confiscate my needles. But then, size 8 bamboo DPNs are really only maybe deadly to vampires. Plus, I'm one of those anal people who prints and highlights the section of the TSA site where they explicitly state that knitting needles are permitted. From my cold dead hands!

Rock my Socks

I finished a pair of socks. These socks are special for three reasons:
- I did them from the toe up, which means they actually fit my stumpy little feet because I could try them on as I went and adjust the instep length to my foot far easier than with top-down socks
- I did them both at once, so not only did I not experience the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome, I know they're exactly the same size
- I did them both at once on the Magic Loop, a totally new knitting experience for me

Plus, it was my first time making a picot edge as well. Go me!

I really like how they turned out:



I'm already up to the heel on another pair!

And yes, I'm pretty much that pale, even in summer.

More Crafty Goodness!

I have been crafting like a machine lately. I think it is the combination of insomnia and singledom.

Anyway, this is a shawl I finished last month. I bought the pattern at an LYS and it uses one skein of Schafer Yarns' Anne, which is this lovely hand-dyed wool/mohair/nylon that I'm now in love with. I need to figure out more projects to use it for because I stumbled across this stormy grey colorway and I'm not allowing myself to buy it until I think of a worthy project.

Half-Pi shawl being blocked:


Stitch and color detail:


Isn't it pretty? I'm totally ignoring the fact that I've never worn a shawl in my life and don't quite know how to pull off wearing one because I really like how it turned out.

Distractions

I still feel horrible. It has been a week, shouldn't I be cured by now? But no, it is like I'm haunted by memories. Nowhere is safe.

But look at the pretty scarf I made my mom back in the spring! Look how pink and lacy!



Yeah, it doesn't make me feel better either. But it sure is pretty!