Annie Knits

Hello.... Hello...? Anyone Out There, Still?

Yeah.  Sorry about that. 

I knew I would have neither the time nor the inclination to post here over the holidays, and I was right. 

But I've been keeping up with you ... mostly ... and there are a lot of numbery things floating around out there!  Resolutions, tallies, pounds and calories.  I'm good with none of those.  But I do have a few holiday numbers for you.  And oddly enough, they provide kind of a quirky glimpse into our past few weeks.

• 7  --  Trays of California Clementines consumed on the premises since December 23rd.
• 50  --   Panera Bread Bowls filled with soup here since Sunday.
• 2.4 -- Feet I have knitted of the Scarf Style swirly scarf out of my handspun.  Pictures to follow.  Yum.
• 3 -- Bottles of half drunk wine sitting on my counter (the white is really good and I should refrigerate that.)
• 4 -- pounds of butter purchased since December 23rd.
• 1/2 -- pounds of butter left in the fridge.
• 1 -- Wii tracked down and purchased.
• 16 or so -- ounces of roving purchased from Rachel today.
• 6 -- bags of baby carrots purchased and consumed since December 23rd.
• 27.6 -- pounds of raw meat scraps purchased to raw feed the dogs since December 23rd.
• 3 -- pans of brownies baked since Christmas Day.
• 1 -- red union suit complete with back flap purchased by special request for hubbster's Christmas -- very funny playing Wii sports on Christmas morning.  Get that image out of your head...
• 2 -- batches of gingerbread cookies baked and consumed.
• 3 -- batches of sugar cookies baked and consumed.
• 2 -- pie crusts in my fridge for the pumpkin pies I never got around to baking.
• 3.5 -- vacuum bags filled and tossed in the course of cleaning up for company over and over.  Too much dog hair in this house!
• 8 -- new Sur la Table Christmas plates with matching salad plates and mugs lined up in my cabinet -- they are red and lovely.
• 1 -- scraggedly kitchen towel left in the kitchen towel drawer... I need to do laundry.

My numbers speak of friends and family in my house.  Such a fun and frenetic holiday season this year!

I hope yours was what you wanted it to be too!  See you tomorrow!

Oh, and one more thing.  Deborah and Rachel are throwing a great Mardi Gras Kick Off party Sunday at the shop.  Come on down and suck you some heads!

Ho Hum

That is what you say on your blog when you're too busy to have any interesting thoughts about which to blog.

Ah me.  The house is cleanish.  The Halloween decorations are on the steps ready to go up and replace the Christmas stuff in the closet.  Laundry's mostly put away.  Dinner's in the crock pot.  Hum drum, I tell you. 

I can't find my camera charging cord, so no pictures.  The Hemlock Ring blanket is nearly 600 stitches around and 6 rows from what I am going to call  finished.  Turns out it's recipient has been checking the blog to see how I'm doing, so I shouldn't post pics of it anyway.  Maybe on Ravelry.  I'll link you to it when I get around to it. 

What's in the crockpot, you ask?  The standard pulled pork.  3 pork tenderloins, 1 bottle of Newman's Own Balsamic Dressing.  10 hours on low.   Yum.

I think I'll throw out some controversial statements, in no particular order, and see if I can get you to bite.  Howzat?

• Moon Sand, while a wonderful time filler for sick kids, ought to be put on some recall list.  It's just too messy.  Or it should come with a warning. 
• I hate mice.   In general and specifically the one that has found a place to live under my corner kitchen counter.  I think I will hate even more though a dead mouse on a trap.  Which by the way is a very effective dog catcher -- the sticky thing has caught Monte twice.  He is not the sharpest crayon in the box.  Cutest, but not sharpest. 
• Dressing up like the Jamaican Bobsledders or Tiger Woods or even Al Sharpton for Halloween is not "donning blackface" as my local paper called it no fewer than 9 times in a recent article.  Painting your face black with a white O for lips and singing like a black minstrel is "donning blackface".  The first bit is inflammatory and misleading and simply historically incorrect -- using the term under those circumstances smudges it's sharply and deeply offensive nature.  Which I think might be just the exact opposite effect from the one the esteemed editorial department was expecting.
• Helping people learn to knit is super rewarding.  It's my absolute favorite thing to do.  Except that I do it so much that I've been missing the Wednesday Night Knittsters at Knitorious pretty consistently.  Which is a bummer.  I miss my peeps. 
• Meeting random people who then tell me that they read my blog is disconcerting.  Which is counterintuitive.  I publish this thing so that people will read it right?  Then why do I get a pit in my stomach when unexpected people do?  It actually has had a dampening effect on my writing.  No, silly, not soggy writing, less writing.  And no, I'm not talking about you.
• Spinning is a fascinating, compulsive, time sucking black hole of a hobby.  I've got about 800 yards of fall colored 2-ply yarn and about a 3rd of the roving yet to spin.  What do you think, Deborah, can I get a ribwarmer out of that?  (You should see Deborah's Ribwarmer... simply smashing.)  And some singles of Dyeabolical superwash. Rachel will know the colorway.  To ply or not to ply.
• I'm raw feeding my dogs -- at least partially.  And Big Dog's allergies are disappearing.  Even with no hard freezes yet.  But raw feeding is yucky.  You need one of these and lots of soapy water to mop the floor around the food bowls after each meal.  At least I no longer have a toddler around the house. 
• A funny thing to do is to take the Thanksgiving turkey carcasses and make a stock out of them (I feel so virtuous -- I always say I'm going to do this and never quite get around to it) and store some of it in what is usually the lemonade pitcher.  I didn't quite have the heart to let Dear Son actually pour a glass and take a swig of it, but nearly.   'Cause that would have been hilarious.  I have a dark side.
• I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when the Irish Composer said, during a recent practice, "Next year, when you do this, blah blah blah..."  Next year?  God, don't talk to me again about Irish Gaelic anything until July, 'k?  I didn't even hear what she said after "next year".   Love, love, love this challenging thing I'm doing, but I'm bonkers tired of it right now.  I wake up with "Taw esagawn ina lee, es kuhloo sa wanshayre twee" running around in my head.  Oh, pipe down, that's the phonetic pronunciation.  I don't even have the keys on my keyboard to write what it really looks like...
• 5th grade math is way over my head.  Or at least it's way too fiddly for me -- and I really don't have the patience for it between 4 and 6 in the evening.  All those factors and long division.  Yeeeuuuccckkk!

Well.  That's enough of that.  The paper should be here by now and I'm off to get jerked around by their editorial staff once again.  It'll be fun.  Promise.

I Have a Secret

I don't like Ravelry very much right now.  Yes, the pattern search option is great -- I just used it to to decide how to go  about kitting up a sweater.  And the meet-ups at Rhinebeck were fun.  Conceptually, it is a great idea:  gather knitters to help each other and to network.  But in practice the forum it gives to single voices is a little bothersome.  People with a lot of time on their hands and an agenda are bringing me down.  The fact that I can't make a thread in a forum disappear and die a quick and painless death is bothersome.  I'm quite sick of it and have sworn off of checking it for a week or so.

Notes to Self:

•    Edited to add:  I must remember that for many people, every yarn purchase is special.  It represents something to which the buyer will devote a great deal of time and talent.  It's easy to get jaded when faced with all of the yarn possibilities every day.  And when you have a discount.

• Some knitters do not realize that we do not work in or own a lys to make a gob of money or to piss them off.  We do not get up in the morning with the express purpose of ripping them off or ignoring them.  We are not automatons.  In fact, we are people with faces, and lives, and mostly good intentions.  We read the postings on the internet, and we have families, and activities, and feelings.
• When you post in a public, local forum that the service sucks in a lys, you are talking about a person.  In a small community, everyone in that community knows of whom you are speaking.  It is personal.
• While I am not saying that service in lys's doesn't periodically suck, (hey everyone can have a bad day) if you come in during a big-once-a-year-sale please don't expect to be fawned over.  Ditto crowded Knit Night shopping.  If someone comes in ahead of you, she or he will be waited on first.  Oh you can expect to be greeted, that's fair, but first come first served.  He or she is receiving the service and attention you will receive in a minute -- be patient.  And that even goes for older ladies buying baby yarn.  Really.
• And that employee sitting at the front table, chatting and laughing with other knitters?  She is not ignoring you.  She is teaching a class.  She is being paid to work with them exclusively for a little while.  Really.  And if she got up and waited on you or chatted with you?  That would be a bad thing.  Everything is not as it appears.  And everything is not about you.
• When you ask people in an internet forum to remain civil and to remember above, they will chafe at that bit.  They will cry that the Internet is all about free speech.  Even when that speech is irresponsible and flatly untrue.  They will fight to the death to post whatever and whenever they please, the rest of us be damned.  (Get a blog, for goodness sake!) They will whine that seeing a civility reminder is "depressing".  They will make forums uninteresting and unpalatable for the rest of the community.
• Some people crave attention, good or bad.  They will say anything to receive that attention, even tell lies (easily verifiable ones?!) to make themselves look better to a group that they value.
• People who crave Internet attention do not want to be recognized in person.  In fact, when you invite them to a local coffee shop to discuss face to face and off of the forum what you could do to help them feel better about and improve the service you offer, they will not even dignify your invitation with an answer, yes or no.

Yes.  That's my secret.  I've been on Ravelry nearly since it's inception, and I don't like it very much right now.  A better name might be Rablery...

So... Do You Want the Good News First, or the Bad?

Yes, well, when it rains, it pours.  Good news?

Kauni Cardigan is complete.  Except for weaving in just a few ends and tacking down the steek facing thingys.  She is absolutely lovely!  On the board. 

The bad news?  Even with all the measuring and futzing and general sleeve anxiety, the sleeves are still about a repeat too long.  Grrr.  And rolling up a colorwork sleeve?  Not so attractive.  I'll have to rip them and re-knit the cuffs.  After Rhinebeck.  Because a note to all those Bingo players -- I'll wear this on Saturday if weather permits!  I bet there will be several, if not more than several, Kaunis at the blogger meet-up.

Details: Kauni Cardigan, by Ruth Sorenson.  I knit the largest size. 

• Needles:  Sizes 3US and 4US.
• Yarn:  Kauni Effektgarn, color EQ, ordered here.  Just email Uta; she is lovely, and her English is way better than my Danish...
• Time:  August 6, 2007 to October 9, 2007.
• Modifications:  I knit a garter box rather than corrugated ribbing at the sleeves, hem, and neck.  Let me just say, PITA!  Buttonholes were a particular challenge.  I found a great buttonhole tutorial for corrugated ribbing in my Art of Fair Isle Knitting book -- now you tell me!  Absolutely no help at all.  After ripping 4 times (because you have to get a row or two past the button hole to see if it's at all attractive...)  I settled on the following:  Cast off 4 in the alternating color; cable cast on 4 from the left needle in the same color; knit over the 4 in the other color.  While not exactly in pattern, it gives the impression of colorwork and alternating colors and if you're looking too closely at my buttonholes, then you're looking too closely at my chest and you need to step back a few!  We'll see if that gets any weird Google hits.
• How do I feel about this knit?  Loved knitting it.  With a passion.  To the exclusion of many other things.  Do I love the fit?  No.  As is the nature of the drop shoulder, it is a little saggy.  Perhaps when it gets more winterish outside, the fit will seem more like what I'm supposed to be wearing...  In fairness, my fit issues might be that I tried it on dampish with a tank top and no buttons.  Because it was like 90° here.  With the right turtle neck and with winter fitting clothes in mind, it might be perfect.  When it cools off appreciably here, I'll let you know.  It's down to 53° now... any idea about the weather next weekend in upstate New York?!

Speaking of Rhinebeck... I'm so excited to go.  I'm going with Bridgett and we'll be staying in Saugerties -- much shorter drive Monday morning to the Albany Airport.  Have fun in Poughkeepsie though -- maybe we can drive up there on Saturday night and party with you all.  I'll be looking for (in this order):  Roving, Roving, the yarn for 1 sweater for me, Roving, and ... oh, some roving.  Maybe some more yarn.  I don't know...

The bad news?  Well it's kind of a story... get a cup of coffee.  Two weekends ago, we got several prank/hang-up phone calls.  It was Friday night, I was working (we're open Friday nights now folks!  Partayy!) and Daughter called me -- she doesn't answer the phone unless she's sure of the identity of the caller.  The CallerID showed the name of a pretty good kid from 8th grade, but he kept hanging up.  It was freaking her out.  I told her to let it go to the answering machine.  The next call  was a different voice telling her to call this kid... well, she wasn't gonna do that!   

Next morning, I had to be somewhere with Dear Son, and soon  Dad was on my cell phone saying that he had gotten two more calls from this same number, both hang-ups!  He was honked off.  I told him to let it go to the machine... to stop picking up the phone and the calls would stop.  When I got home the message on the machine was as follows:  " (whispered by what sounds like Mom) just tell her it's you and for her to call you!"  and then, "Hithisis(boy's name)couldyouhave (Daughter)callme"click.  Just like that, all run together and fast and ... Oh my gosh! 

So she called him back, and ... you guessed it, she's going to his all-boys-school homecoming.  Turns out that the voice we didn't recognize the night before was his mom... ***grin***.  And of course all the hang-ups with Daughter  and with Dad were this poor guy chickening out.  And really, before you worry, he is a really nice kid, one of the few from that class.   And he is already an Eagle Scout (at 14!).  And he and Daughter had been buddies in 5th, 6th, and 7th, but the other kids had teased them for being friends, so there hadn't been much contact in 8th grade.  So.  How is this bad news?  The dance is the 21st of October.  Ahem.  Heavy Sigh. So, we've got dress, hair and make-up appointment, and accessories all set up -- it's up to Dad to execute.  Heavy sigh again.  You control freaks out there will commiserate with the knot in my stomach.

More Good and Bad in no particular order:

• Good for me to be on the board of our neighborhood association.  We should all participate in local governance.  Bad for me is that, while I am Treasurer and accomplish a number of neighborhood related tasks each month, the 60-ish men CEOs on the board keep asking me to "run things to ground" for them -- you know, niggling little tasks like ordering plaques for them to present to neighbors who win their committee awards and newsletter snafus. And they call me "Annie".  Which I choose on my blog, but I do not choose in this milieu -- it's a little pet-nameish...  Which is of course how they use it.  I politely replied that I'd let him run this little task to ground himself, thankyouverymuch, and that when he needed a check for the order, he could call me...
• Good that Dear Son can accomplish multiplication when there are two numbers in the top row and two numbers in the bottom with relative ease -- in his head, actually.  Bad that he doesn't read the directions which call for him to estimate these answers.  Which gets him an F on his Math test... for getting all of the problems correct.  Estimating would take several more steps than just writing down the exact answer and he can't be bothered.   Neither can his Math teacher be bothered to get her head out of her a@@ and see that his answers are correct and that he doesn't NEED to estimate that kind of problem and if she wants him to have to estimate which is actually a good skill to have that she'll have to present him with more difficult problems!  Holy crap!  No really, I get it... he needs to estimate.  Just not at this level, and he'll learn to estimate, but I think it's lazy of her not to notice that he's just gotten all of the problems mathematically correct ... she could talk to him about it, or give half credit or something!  The test just came home with giant red slashes all over it and a big F at the top.  Nice.
• Good that I'm learning all this new music for my Gaelic concert.  It is lovely, really lovely music.  Haunting in that Irish music kind of way and I love the harmonies.  Bad that I'm learning all this new music for this Gaelic concert.  Really.  'Cause Irish Gaelic has lots of sounds that I don't make in normal American speech, and I'm spitting all over my music, and For God's Sake there are way more syllables than notes in here, aren't there?!  It's stressing me out.

Oh My Gosh...

I have been ignoring you, blog friends!  Sheesh, September kicks my butt! 

• The kids have gotten back in the swing of school and things are going well.  Thank God! 
• The dog allergies are in full swing with lots of scratching, snorfling, sneezing and barfing up grass.  Lovely.  And it's a grass allergy, connected to fall, so she takes Benedryl and it helps only a little.  Poor thing.  We're just waiting for a frost. 
• And I signed up for a crazy choir thing ('cause I didn't have enough else to do!) where we are learning beeeuuutiful music, arranged in choral parts by an Irish gal/composer/singer.  Oh.  And did I mention that the words are all in Gaelic?!  Yea.  We're pulling an Abba.  Someone told us that at least we were learning Gaelic and we could go to Ireland... um, right, if all I need to talk about are sailing ships and a bright child in a manger, I'm in like Flynn! (Which , it turns out, is possibly some weird nod to Errol Flynn's manhood.  Ick.)  But seriously, click on the link and listen to the music.  If anything has to get stuck in my head, I'm ok with this.  She was in town last week-end and we worked with her for two solid days learning, and now we're rehearsing once a week for performances the week before Christmas.  (Really, if you're in town and want a really calming break from holiday hub-bub, come and give a listen.)  This on top of regular choir practice -- where at least we learn holiday songs in English.    Ahem.
• Work.  'Nuff said.  It's September and it's cooling off.  Apparently someone yelled TIME TO KNIT SOMETHING!! when I wasn't listening, 'cause we're off to the races.

And I have actually been knitting things.  Several things.  Multi-tasking if you will.  Ahem, again.

Kauni is coming along...  Isn't she pretty?!  Those of you who said I'd be lazy and let the colors fall where they may called it right.  The color combos are staying the same though, so each sleeve at least matches some other spot in the sweater.

I'm pretty pleased with my knitting, actually.  The gauge is spot on, and with a nod to Wendy and her tip to spread out stitches mercilessly when doing stranded knitting, the knitting is lying pretty flat even without any blocking.  No bunching up here!  And check out how much yarn I have left... I'll be able to do a baby Kauni, I think.  Don't you?  Better too much, than too little.

Here is some shop knitting.  We've gotten  in lots of lovely colors of  Harrisville Designs New England Shetland, and since I'm obviously on a stranded knitting kick, I'm nominated to knit up some colorwork.  It is, of course, the mitten on the cover -- EZ's Knitting Around, Norwegian Mittens.  Here's what I've learned so far:

1. I don't do colorwork on dpns.  Really.  Don't ask me to do it again.  Except for those garter blocks on the Kauni sweater.  For some reason those are ok. 
2. When she says start in pattern, EZ means right now, not a row later.  Ahem for the 3rd time.
3. Two color knitting that is not just blocks requires concentration and sticky notes. 

The after thought thumb.  It's all I can do not to rip out those stitches and start that thing right now, it's so cute.  What's stopping me?  It's two color knitting on dpns.  Curses.

Holiday knitting has begun.  The Hemlock Ring Blanket, from Jared and Susan (whom I am apparently knit-stalking as she's done a Kauni as well and I lifted my edge treatments from her...)  In Suri Merino on 9's.  OMG.  Love this pattern.  Is anyone else intrigued with the idea of knitting on 9's a pattern written to be knit up on maybe 000's?   There are so many lovely doily patterns in the public domain out there... endless possibilities.  And a nod to our knitting past, which I kind of enjoy.  I think we should do a class or knit-along of this pattern at the shop. What say you?

Kauni Cardigan Update

Ahhh.  I'm sitting in a thoroughly de-crappified kitchen -- took me an hour and a half -- and drinking a cup of coffee.  The house is quiet, the sun is shining, the dishwasher is running, the dogs are sleeping.  Whew!  Summer is a lot of work.   

I finally have a whole day where I could stay home if I needed to.  And I do -- alarm repair guy and new gas gauge installation guy are slated to come between ... um ... 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.  Of course they will both come at 2:58 p.m. when I have to go get kids at school and I'll have to reschedule.  That is the way of things, don't you think?

Anyway, the waiting gives me time to talk about Kauni.

The colors here are pretty accurate -- she does kind of glow in the dark right above the middle there.  A factor of letting yellow and bright blue play together.  Serendipitous is the fact that purple and orange and red come out right next to my face and hair... I couldn't have planned it better.  I'm at the point in the pattern where I've casted off (hmm... is it "have cast off"  or "have casted off"?) and done shaping for the front and back necklines -- now I'm waiting to get to 62 cms.  Then it's off to the steeking races.  I'm looking forward to steeking this sweater, actually.  The yarn is stiiiccckkkyyy.  I doubt I really need to do the machine stitching, but I will 'cause the pattern says so.  I don't mess with patterns as a rule until I've knitted them once.  (Which is to say I rarely mess with patterns because I rarely knit something twice.  ***grin***)

Neck steek and shaping. 

And, while I wasn't planning to, I think I have enough yarn left to match up the sleeves.   YA THINK?! Jeez.  This yarn is like a giant bowl of spaghetti.  There never seems to be any less of it!  Some bloggers knitting this sweater have let the sleeves fall where they may and others have made matching sleeves.  I'm on the fence.  The sweater is a quiet riot anyway, why not let the sleeves just be what they will be?  On the other hand, this sweater is a quiet riot.  Matching sleeves might just be the balance it needs.  Here's what I bet I'll do:  knit one and see if matching the other is too much trouble.   

Here's what I wish I had:

• A dressmaker's dummy.  Then I could try this on it.  I think it might be a tad big, even though I'm spot on with gauge.  And I could try Planalto on it too -- you've noticed I haven't posted a finished picture of that sweater, haven't you?  Yeah.  Seaming it makes it seem way too small...  so it's in timeout until I feel better about it or lose 20 lbs.  On the other hand, if I had a dressmaker's dummy that was my size, it might be just the visual encouragement I need to lose the weight.  A good excuse all around for getting one...
• A postal scale.  Then I could weigh the sweater and the leftover yarn and see if we're hitting the 2/3 sweater, 1/3 sleeves yarn estimate.
• A wife who would de-crappify the rest of my house.