Keep your books warm and your ears warmer

I finished "Kim's hat" from Last Minute Knitted Gifts last week, but I haven't had time to a) blog or b) take pictures of it. And the weather has been miserable and overcast lately -- or rather, it's sunny when I'm busy and overcast when I have a free moment and reach for the camera. Anyway, hat: I've been wanting a hat with ear flaps for a while and I'm very pleased with the way they turned out They looked huge as I was knitting them, but apparently I just have no realistic concept of exactly how big my ears are. (They're massive.) The only alteration I made to the pattern was in the depth/height of the hat. While my ears are large, my head is disproportionately small. I knit the hat according to the pattern (7 inches before the decreases) and I had a good two inches of empty space between the crown and my head, so I frogged back until I had about 5 inches of hat and re-knit the decreases. Perfect! And, of course, it's perfect for keeping my beloved and much be-scribbled-in Norton Shakespeare warm. A warm book is a happy book, after all. (Especially when it needs some lovin' after being chewed on by a cat with distinct tastes in drama.) But really, I just like playing with the tassels.

Bartholomew Cubbins was an amateur.

It's hat time! This is one of "Kim's hats" from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and eventually it will have ear flaps, i-chord ties, and tassels. The colors are kind of bland, but that's ok because 1) I'm using up stash yarn I've had for years, and 2) I like bland. I'm actually making the new hat as a replacement for this old one, which has seen better days. My mom made this for me years ago (5? 6?), and I was so eager to wear it that I stole it before she'd sewn the ends in. I've never gotten around to it myself, so the ends are still unwoven. And now it's starting to come apart. There are holes in it that I think are beyond my skill to fix, although I've had it in my WIP bin for a while hoping that someday I'll feel inspired to tackle the grafting. Or maybe not. ************************************* A few days ago I saw an offer of yarn on my local Freecycle group. The post only said: offering 5 skeins of yarn, its the yarn used to made the popular scarfs in the stores. I'm guessing Fun Fur. Anyone else?

Curse of the Were-sock

Dudes, there is something wrong with this sock. More accurately, there is something wrong with my ability to knit this sock. See those stitches there? Those stitches are supposed to be knit like this: Yo, k2tog, (p1, k1 tbl) five times, thus continuing the pattern. They're wrong. And I just can't force myself to think my way around this one. I've torn these things out so many times now that I don't have any fight left. You win, sock! For now. It's going in the stash/WIP bin until I want a challenge or a headache. After finding myself in this quandary with the sock, I started something else. Yes, it's my FOURTH Clapotis. But this one is special because it's mine. And after making three others and trying them on for size and yarn estimations, I've really come to love this wrap. But I want something else for myself. (What can I say? I'm a greedy knitter.) So on a trip to Barnes and Noble -- which was school-related, I promise -- I may have been influenced by the sock situation when I bought Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I'm going to make the hourglass sweater, and it will become what I've been referring to as my "dirty sailor" sweater (because it will be blue and grey stripes instead of blue and white -- not because I intend to act like a dirty sailor while wearing it). Now all I need to do is get the yarn. Hello, student loan.

YO

Making the second Pomatomus for the third time, I tried something different with my yarn overs. Not right away, but after half of the first chart, I realized that there was an easier way to do the YO into purls. Instead of wrapping the yarn all the way around the right needle (yeah), I left it in back and brought it over the top and into the purl. This makes sense, yes? Well, it took me a sock and a bit to figure it out. I'm not good at "thinking outside of the box" or even just "thinking" on some days. Here's the problem: I really like the way this looks. If I wasn't such an impatient knitter, I'd frog the whole sock so that the top inch of the pattern matched the rest. (But really, who sees the top inch of a sock?) This sock, while it will look great when I'm done, doesn't match the first one now. The first one is chock full of the unnecessarily yarny YOs, and I've never been happy with the way it looks. So open and sloppy. Like, ew. But I don't think I have the heart to completely reknit it. It's taken me so long to get anywhere near finished on these socks -- I just want to wear the damn things. Oh, and here's something else that's ew: the way the yarn dyes my fingers. I've gone to the grocery store like this (the photo was taken after I'd washed my hands) and gotten dirty looks from old ladies as I pick out tomatoes. I'm sure they're eyeing the line of black stuff under my fingernails and thinking that this little blonde girl doesn't really look like a coalminer.

Six things and a mystery.

The semester starts tomorrow, so I'm pretty sure I won't get another chance to post this week. To keep the blog warm, here's a "six weird things" thingie stolen from Kate A and Speccy Drew and The Mystery of the Hidden Case. Six weird things: 1. I have a slight obsession with coffee mugs. I like broad, deep mugs that feel interesting and push the boundary between a cup and a bowl with a handle. Every time I go to Target I cruise by the coffee mugs and they're always the only thing I'm attracted to in fancy pants home furnishings stores (I'm looking at you, Pier 1 and World Market). 2. My pinkie fingers lock up when I use them too much. This is something that was a problem when I played flute and piccolo, and I'd forgotten about it until Christmas break. When I played many, many hours of Guitar Hero. 3. I can do one-handed cartwheels. 4. I always have frozen broccoli in my freezer. I mean, I eat it a lot; I don't just have one bag that I never use. 5. Every time I buy a new article of clothing, I dance around a little in front a mirror wearing it. [That was such an awkward sentence. I apologize.] I need to be sure that it'll survive if the city is suddenly under the mental control of a villain who makes everyone dance around. Or if I'm in a bank that's held up and the robber pulls out a boom box and demands that we all bust a move. Or if I have to do a rolling-off-a-log (always my favorite step in tap class) to illustrate something to my students. These are all possible and realistic situations. 6. I am terrified of house fires. I blame this entirely on my elementary school, which conducted a yearly Fire Safety Week. During FSW, the entire school would watch videos about how horrible it is to die of smoke inhalation, how quickly an entirely family can be snuffed out, and how necessary it is for YOU to check your smoke detectors and have a PLAN. This plan is only good if it is drawn by a child an includes a picture of the family standing happily beside an X while the house burns merrily. We also watched a video about a little girl scalding herself in a bathtub while her mother was on the phone, and ending up with 3rd degree burns all over her body, skin grafts, and enough white bandages to cover her from head to toe (this one bothered me more than the house fires). After years of me having screaming nightmares during FSW, my parents let me stay home during 5th and 6th grade. And now, Speccy Drew and the Mystery of the Hidden Case. Yesterday I was trying to find my Denise circulars' case to put away some needles I'd taken home to finish the Jamesey. I knew -- I KNEW -- it had to be somewhere in this corner of my apartment. Where was it? Click here for the answer.

Restarting.

First of all: thank you, everyone. I wanted to respond to each of your comments individually, but every time I started to I ended up rambling on and on, and then deleting everything. There are many reasons for my decision and it seems that I can't get into one of them without talking about them all. So I'll leave the entire topic alone for now, and just say that your support and approval mean a lot to me. You guys, it can't be said enough, are wonderful human beings. On to the knitting, which is nonexistent this week. Sharfik has been completely frogged. It was intended for an aunt with whom I had a bit of a falling out (nothing dramatic, but very, very odd for my family) and since the scarf wasn't finished by Christmas anyway, I just kept it and started ripping when I had a free moment today. So now I have four balls of Karabella Aurora plushly enhancing the stash. The Pomatomus will be reborn. I screwed up the second sock a really long time ago, so I ripped out what I had and am starting over with that beautiful blackberry and merlot yarn. Check out that weather -- it's been warm and rainy for a few days now and it's not exactly ideal knitting weather. And also on the horizon: a sweater for myself. I want a blue and grey horizontal striped sweater with a boatneck and fitted sleeves. While I think I can pick out a pattern from the ones I have, I'm not sure what yarn to use. I'm trying to save up for the move this summer (away from the Southeast, back to the Mid-Atlantic, oh yes) so I can't splurge on anything fancy. And yet I'm tempted to spend some money on this one project for myself as an early "graduation" (commencement?) gift. So what say you, internets? What's your favorite sweater yarn? Oh, and the photos are from a bookstore in Philadelphia called Book Trader. If you're ever in town, you should stop by. They've changed locations recently, but the store has the same comforting atmosphere and the same friendly cat that I remembered.

24 = 2007

One of the odd things about having a birthday so near New Year's is the tendency to get very introspective and sentimental around the holidays. I bury a calendar year and a year of my life at the same time, which makes it very easy to lapse into a re-examination of my life, dreams, and goals. 2006 and 23 were rough years for me, personally and professionally, and as a result I've decided that 2007 and 24 are going to be much better. I'm making big changes, but starting with small ones (like no more blueberry pie for breakfast and trying to go to bed before 1 AM every night). The bigger changes are the frightening ones, but I can't imagine not making them. I've made lists upon lists of reasons, pros and cons, benefits and possible downfalls, and talked to many, many people. (This is the first time I've asked for friends' and family's help dealing with decisions, and I'm shocked to discover that it makes things much easier.) Change is inevitable and I'm controlling the next big one. I'm leaving grad school. I'm not sure yet whether I'm taking time off or leaving for longer and making a more permanent break -- but I'm tired. I'm unhappy, sick, guilt-ridden, anxious, not sleeping, intensely disliking myself and my work, eating poorly, missing my family and friends, feeling disconnected and lost, and I miss reading just for the pleasure of the words; but mostly I'm just tired. This is a hard decision to make, and it will be even harder to carry out because I'm still in love with the idea of academia and scholarship and still terrified about living a life as anything other than a scholar and teacher. But I hope that by telling you, the fact that I've decided will suddenly become real and easier to accept. It's true! I am going to be happier next year -- the internet says so. Happy New Year, everyone. May all of yours be improvements over 2006, no matter how fantastic last year was. P.S. I rewrote this many times trying to make it sound jubilant and triumphant. I am jubilant and triumphant but also scared, nervous about doing the right thing, sad, and apprehensive. Apparently the apprehension wants to come out more than the relief and glee. But know that there are good doses of glee, relief, and optimism in the decision, too. Knitting content resumes with the next post.