Sunday Top Ten again

When I was a kid we used to sing this song:

There was an old man called Michael Finnegan
He grew whiskers on his chin again
He cut ’em off but they grew in again
Poor old Michael Finnegan!
Begin again!

Fortunately my iPod does not contain that song.

This week’s soundtrack:
1. Toccata & Fugue in D Minor by Bach
2. The Look of Love by Billy May and his Orchestra
3. My Three Sons by Nelson Riddle and his Orchestra
4. Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major, Op. 55 3. Scherzo Allegro Vivace by Beethoven
5. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case
6. Last Train to Clarksville by The Monkees
7. Know Your Role by Method Man
8. Simple Gifts by Allison Krauss & Yo-Yo Ma (one of my most favorite songs ever)
9. Black and Blue by Tilly and the Wall
10. Feeling Neglected? by Rainer Maria

What’s in your ears?

Read Full Post »

Things I do not have to do

I’ve been really tense lately, worrying about things I have to do or things I want to do but can’t, or things that are completely out of my control.

It’s oh so very much fun.

What I’m doing to combat that is to list the things that I really don’t have to do at all.

1. I do not have to shoe a horse. It’s true. There is very little blacksmithing that I am called upon to perform in my life. This is pretty good news, overall.

2. I do not have to reupholster a couch.

3. I do not have to forage for my food. Well done there.

4. I don’t have to realphabetize my books.

5. It is not necessary that I bench press a refrigerator.

6. I don’t have to stop drinking beer.

7. Learning a new language is not required.

8. I don’t have to worry about a flock of starlings taking up residence in my home.

9. There is no reason for me to calculate algebraic equations. Specifically matrices. I could never understand those goddamn things.

10. I don’t have to conjugate Latin verbs.

So I’ve got that going for me.

Read Full Post »

Sunday Top Ten

I’m stealing this meme from every other blogger. Want to play along? Set your ipod to shuffle all (or play all, whatever) and list the first ten songs that come up.

1. “Dream Lover” by Bobby Darin
2. “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins
3. “Take a Chance on Me” by ABBA
4. “One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21” by The Flaming Lips
5. “Miseria Cantare (The Beginning)” by AFI
6. “Bad Education” by Tilly and the Wall
7. “Wise Up” by Aimee Man
8. “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole” by Martha Wainwright
9. “All the Umbrellas in London” by The Magnetic Fields
10. “Red Tide” by Neko Case

Huh. That’s kind of a weird list.

In other news, I’m two repeats away from finishing the shawl, and I’ve reached the Slogging Bit. I had hoped to get it done this weekend, but got busy with all the doing nothing that I did instead.

Read Full Post »

Though not without its charms…

… my week has been less than stellar.

1. Migraine. During my second childbirth education class.

2. Less-than-legal midwife at a friend’s birth. Now, I’m not a fan of the Illinois state law that says breech births and twins cannot be delivered at home, but it makes lots of sense to abide by the law, right? This woman didn’t think so, and was telling me stories of times she has asked some of her clients to “not say anything” about her helping them. Great practice, just splendid. My friend had her baby after I had to leave for my paying job, and I hear that everything went well, but holy crap.

I used to work with a midwife who is also a nurse (a Certified Nurse-Midwife), and I thought she was way too medical for my taste. At this birth, I felt a little bit at sea without the “medical”-ness of my original midwife. I missed the protocol and the every-half-hour checks.

3. Depression and its sneaky nature. Just when I’ve figured out that I’ve been a little down or blue or depressed or whatever and have started to feel better, November goes and happens and the grey skies kick the shit out of my good mood. Thank you, fate or karma or irony or whatever.

4. Damn yarn and its damn non-compliance with its own damn tags. I bought a skein of Manos worsted at my LYS about a week ago, and only now balled it up and instead of the 100grams listed on the tag, I have 70grams. THIRTY FREAKING GRAMS are missing, and I’m a little bit pissed about it. See?

Well, not see my fury, but see the weight of the yarn? Each ball is 35 grams, which means about 1/3 of my yarn is missing. AWESOME.

5. There is a new person at… a place I frequent, and she’s annoying as hell. She took a knitting class from me, and now that we … frequent the same place during the week, she constantly asks for my help on knitting patterns. I feel like she … started frequenting the place that I frequent solely for the purpose of getting free knitting help. “Hey, if I bring in a pattern, will you tell me where I’m going wrong?” Only say it in a nasally, loud, bastard voice.

Grumble, grumble.

My weekend should be looking up, though. My youngest sister is coming into town and will be staying over two nights (I think), then NinjaHusband and I go into some suburb on Sunday to start his tattoo. So things can only get better, right?

I hope so. I want to stop saying “bastard” and “goddamn” in my head so much.

ETA: I called the yarn store this morning before I went to work and left a message telling them that the hank was light. The owner called me back half an hour before they opened and told me she had weighed all the skeins in that colorway and two of them came out at about 70 grams. She’s holding one of those for me to claim, free of charge. My day is looking up!

Read Full Post »

Approaching Calm

Things have been a weird combination of hectic and happy here at House of HookOn (… a little alliteration never killed anyone, c’mon) lately, and I’m delighted to report that some of the uncertainty is finding its way to resolution with a bit of “Oh yes, that’s what it’s supposed to be like” thrown in. Not everything, of course, but some bits and that feels like quite a lot right now.

1. I’ve joined the Log Cabin strips all up and now it’s a big ol’ rectangle of bright shiny love.

All it needs is a border, and that’s one of the things still up in the air. I know I’m going to have to buy more Cascade EcoWool for the border in any case, but I don’t know if I want to make the border 9 garter ridges wide (1.5 times the width of the “interior” sashing) or 12 garter ridges wide (2 times the interior sashing). Anyone with an opinion is welcome to weigh in. I’d show you a picture of the border as it is now (at the 9-ridge stage), but it’s all scrunched up on a 24″ circular and you wouldn’t be able to see what it was anyway.

2. Speaking of pictures…

I GOT MY CAMERA BACK!!! In fact, it’s better than my camera (perhaps you remember its vampire-like tendencies?) it’s a replacement camera. It takes great pictures! Without lines! Holy damn hell, people, I am so excited about this. I can return my friend’s camera…

… and rekindle my love affair — after 7 weeks apart — with my sweet sweet camera. BUT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL THERE BE WINE. And because there must be balance in the universe, this is the kind of light I have on the day I get my camera back…

Dammit.

3. I’ve had this weird rash on my torso for a bit and was trying to treat it myself using old prescriptions (DO NOT DO THIS, IT’S QUITE STUPID) and it wasn’t really going away. This morning I made a list of all the things in my life that were a bit different (a new detergent, higher-than-usual stress levels, excessive hugging of woolly blankets-in-progress) and went off to the doctor. Turns out I have this, it’s a virus that just shows up for unexplained reasons, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. (Nothing. That kind of boggles my mind.) It’s not communicable, it’s not going to cause bits to fall off, and it’s not going to go away for another 6 weeks, probably. AWESOME.

On the plus side, it’s good to know what it is so I can just quit freaking out. It’s also good to know its other symptoms (headache, fatigue, nausea) because for a week or so there I thought I was pregnant. So now I can just quit freaking out. (Edit: Because I’m NOT.)

(I’m not going to show pictures of the rash. Sorry to disappoint.)

4. I finished shopping for my vegan secret pal this morning and I’m going to get the package out tomorrow or the next day, so I can cross that off my list. Not that it was onerous or anything — I had a really fun time learning about her through her blog, and it was fun to shop for someone whose preferences in color and scents were so different from mine. The swap also involves sending vegan recipes, so I am putting in two of my favorites that are the most approachable — meaning, there’s no tofu and all the ingredients can be found in your local grocery store. That was the biggest put-off for me when I first went vegan — the one cookbook I could find (The Voluptuous Vegan, which I can appreciate now) was so full of strange ingredients and complicated preparation that I think I panicked and ate boxed rice for 18 months as a result.

…..

So yes, things are … if not slowing down, at least bringing it down to a 2. I’m getting there.

Read Full Post »

Recap and Review

My Stitches Midwest 2007 Experience can be summed up in the following picture-less points (sorry, the Dada camera is still at the repair shop):

1. If you can help it, don’t go to Stitches when you’re ill. It really brings down your energy level and there is nothing at Stitches that feels better than a nap.

2. That said, I had a really great time hanging out with Femiknitter and exploring the giant knitters’ playground that is Stitches. I loved every minute of the four hours that we were there, and had a blast napping when we got back to her folks’ house. And eating spicy food that opened up my sinuses. And going to bed really early. (Nick was right; the knitter in me was stronger than the cold, but just barely.)

3. I managed to stay within my self-imposed yarn budget. This was both an awesome thing and a sort of sad thing. It was awesome because, hey! I’ve got self-control, but it was sad because hey! when else am I going to see this much amazing yarn in one place. I blame my self-control entirely on my cold, of course. Had I been more lucid I would have said to hell with the budget and pulled out the MasterCard.

4. I purchased 6 balls of Kureyon (enough to finish up the afghan) (mostly bright colors); 2 skeins of ShiBui Knits sock yarn in Orchid; 2 skeins of Koigu in black (I’m not linking to anything here because, well, it’s black Koigu. You can probably imagine what it looks like.) because I have some pretty Koigu leftover from my first socks and I think that color would make cute toes and heels on a black sock; 1 skein of Chapman Springs STR in lightweight and 1 skein in Sapphire STR in lightweight (apparently not on the website yet) (for a Chevron Scarf… mmm!); and 1 enormous cone of Valley Yarns something-or-other that is comparable to Rowanspun (I don’t really know… I was delirious from the great deal — $32.00 — and the fever) in a luscious brown-with-pinkish-bits. It’s going to be the Tangled Yoke Cardigan from the new IK.

5. Not a huge haul, but everything I bought makes me feel good. And I had a plan going in. Everything I bought had a specific and pre-determined purpose, except the ShiBui Knits sock yarn. That just made me giggle, so it had to come home with me. Having a plan RULES!

6. This is the part where I make a little grumpy noise. I’m going to preface my grumpy noise by saying I like Tess’ Yarns. I love Melinda’s color sense and I love the base yarns. Last year I bought two skeins of their microfiber ribbon, but didn’t have a pattern for it (do you see why I went in with a plan this year?). What made me a little grumpy was the set up of their booth at Stitches. None of the yarns had pricetags on them — you had to get a price sheet (of which they kept running out, and were taxed with printing more) to find out what the stuff cost. And when I tried to buy a pattern for the microfiber ribbon yarn tank top, I had to wait in line THREE TIMES because the pattern just could not be found (It eventually turned up, after my third wait in line, as we were ready to leave). This is just a review of their service at Stitches in a crazybusy situation — I’m sure the online and bricks-and-mortar store service are better.

7. I am feeling much healthier now. I’m not at all disgusting anymore, which pleases me no end.

I’m sorry this post is so boring and picture-less. I’ve had to rely on a surreptitiously borrowed camera, and it’s not always available when I want it to be. Hopefully the Dada camera will return to me soon, free of all its Dada tendencies.

Read Full Post »

Big plans

There is so much going on in my head right now, knit/crochet-wise, that it’s kind of hard to keep track of myself. It’s like I’m living a Bright Eyes lyric (“My mind races with all my longings / But can’t keep up with what I’ve got”).

I’ve got so many projects on the needles that I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed, which is kind of strange. I usually like having lots of projects going, lots of different kinds of things to suit my different moods (stockinette in the round for those chatty SnBs, lace for times I want to be focused, socks for portability… you know). But now I’m thinking about all these projects that aren’t getting worked on (I’ll admit it — the Kureyon blanket blocks are consuming ALL my time lately) and I’m not happy about it.

Why the sudden remorse about over-indulgence? Ravelry is making me be honest about what I’ve got on the needles/hooks, and combined with what I want to knit up in the next few months and my knitting classes at work, there’s a bit of a dark cloud over my head.

I told you I was making a warshrag (one project of many), and here’s proof…

Read Full Post »

Lack of evidence notwithstanding

I woke up My alarm clock went off at 7:45am like it’s supposed to, but I didn’t get out of bed until 8:23am. A matter of some concern, as I’m supposed to be at work at 8:30 (good thing I live but a two-minute walk to work, eh?). And this afternoon I came home from work and immediately fell asleep on the couch for three hours. Didn’t even change out of my work clothes. I hope I’m not getting sick.

Anyway, that was a poor way to set up the fact that I don’t have any pictures of my new knitting. Because yes, I have been knitting.

• I have cast on for the Tomato (after knitting a gague swatch WHICH LIES) using needles a size larger than for the swatch WHICH LIES AND PLOTS AGAINST ME.
• I am working on a warshrag (which doesn’t lie and is in fact very sweet).
• I have not picked up the headband. I will finish it by the end of the month, but these things cannot be rushed.
• I did list all the projects that I’d like to work on in the next 6 months or so, which feels sort of like knitting progress.

So yes, I have been knitting. Not knitting myself a Ferrari or anything, but knitting nonetheless. Thanks to my husband for the link!

And stop by Anna’s today, because she is a year older today than she was yesterday, and she deserves our love and salutations.

Read Full Post »

Me vs. my shortcomings

Thank you, thank you, to everyone who wrote nice things about my Ballet Camisole! I appreciate the comments, and I’m glad you all seem to like it. I like it pretty well, too. It definitely stretches out a bit with wear, so I’m glad the Shine can be thrown in the machine for a wash to regain its shape.

I’m attempting to move on and finish other projects I’ve got lying around, so as to feel less guilty about it all when I finally start my Tomato top (and have you seen the post about darts on the Knitting Daily site? Good stuff.).

Remember this?

Yeah, it’s not really moving on.

It’s 10:00 at night, we leave for an overnight camping trip tomorrow at 1:00pm, and I’m trying to finish that damn headband. I’m at the point where the pattern starts to narrow to make the other end and FOR THE LIFE OF ME I can’t make the stitches do what I want. K3tog is not something I normally do, and is not easy with the stubby 4.0mm needles I’m using (not the KnitPicks needles, these. No, these are something entirely less good). I think I’m throwing in extra yarnovers as well, but I’m not sure, because I keep getting mixed up, and tinking back a row or five. Who knows where I am at this point.

I blame this confusion on any one of the following, or possibly on a combination:

• I started my period today, and it’s extra crampy and extra bitchy and extra godawful
• It’s fixin’ to storm (I can say it–I’ve got a little country in my background) and I always get a little weird before storms.
• Nick is playing Guitar Hero while I’m trying to knit, and I keep looking up to observe his excitement over mastering a game that is so like and at the same time so wildly unlike actual guitar playing (which he actually does, and does very well).
• It’s too freaking hot to think.

I’d like to finish this damn thing by tomorrow, but I’d also like to sleep tonight and not be a flaming bitch to my husband (for the 5th day running, as long as we’re being honest). I’ll slog on to the end, because I want to live in harmony with the lace, which will lead to confidence in my lace-making skills, which I need because I want to make a pretty shawl for an upcoming winter wedding (for me, not the bride). See, fighting against my ineptitude will be worth it in the end.

Right?

Read Full Post »

Lessons Learned This Weekend

Don’t knit the fiddly bits of your tank top while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That part where it says “k21, attach second ball of yarn, BO 32, k to end”? This qualifies as fiddly, and if you get caught up in the emotion of the episode where Oz leaves Willow after being a total dog (Ha!), you will forget to attach the second ball of yarn.

Emails with the subject “Pox and gleet vendor” are rarely from someone with honest intentions.

When meeting your girlfriends for Knit in Public Day at the local park, wear some sunscreen or a hat so that you do not become painfully sunburned and add a new kind of cancer to your family’s already growing list.

When helping your mom out by doing some weeding, don’t assume that the lone shrub-like plant among the iris plants is an anomaly and does not belong. It does. Now you owe your mom a serviceberry bush. Whatever that is.

NASCAR cars get 4.2 miles to the gallon. Four point two. I hate NASCAR.

It is amazing fun to be able to drink wine while on the clock at work.

Read Full Post »