The holiday break has begun. I almost managed to avoid that desperate student. Until the very last day, when one of the Art faculty called to say that her student had lost her "blurb book" on one of our lab machines. Poor kid, she did everything right, had it backed up to a thumb drive, but the program crashed as she was backing up the finished project to take a copy home, and it corrupted both copies of the file. Sometimes computers stink. Luckily, the professor had already graded the project, she just wasn't able to take a copy home to show the folks. It was sad.
On Monday, our Christmas company arrived. Our goddaughter, Kathi, and her mom. They're staying until New Year's Eve. Next week, Kathi's brother is arriving, too. Since Kathi is in a wheelchair, she can't go up to our normal guest space in the attic, so we have converted half the family room to a bedroom. Thank goodness it's 15' x 22', so there's room. We put up a curtain, and it seems to be working just fine. I love having a home with lots of space! I have to work the rest of this week, then I have two weeks off. Peter will be off next week as well. I'm not sure what we'll all do for the week, but it'll be fun to have the free time with everyone.
So with house renovations and company, not much knitting has been happening. Probably won't until New Year's. But it's an exciting time at the Airplane House, and in case I don't get a chance to post again before then, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Prayer in the Schools
Last day of classes here at the College. Everyone is too busy to call in with computer problems unless it's a total melt-down. So I'm sitting next to my very quiet phone, knowing that if it does ring, it will be someone in a total panic. I pray a lot at this point in the semester. Here in I.T., we're all just hoping we can get through finals next week without having to deal with that student who just lost their senior thesis, doesn't have backups, and it's due in 5 minutes, no extensions. That's the one I really dread. If I could just say two words to every computer user in the world, they would be: back up!
I'm rambling because I haven't gotten much knitting done this week, so nothing new to report. On Wednesday I went to the last meeting of the College knitting group for the semester. But the one December Bio graduate was doing her senior poster presentation in our knitting space. She's a groupie to the knitting group, she's fun and we're all going to miss her terribly. So I hung around and learned a lot about daddy longlegs spiders. Including that they don't have teeth, even though I clearly remember being bitten by one as a kid. Oh, well, it wasn't radioactive, so I'm okay.
I'm rambling because I haven't gotten much knitting done this week, so nothing new to report. On Wednesday I went to the last meeting of the College knitting group for the semester. But the one December Bio graduate was doing her senior poster presentation in our knitting space. She's a groupie to the knitting group, she's fun and we're all going to miss her terribly. So I hung around and learned a lot about daddy longlegs spiders. Including that they don't have teeth, even though I clearly remember being bitten by one as a kid. Oh, well, it wasn't radioactive, so I'm okay.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Fat pants
Hoo, boy, I'm wearing my fat pants today! Cooked dinner for the family (10 people) on Thanksgiving. It was a good time, and I was happy with how the meal turned out. Then we ate leftovers all weekend. My husband loves leftovers, especially from Thanksgiving. How lucky am I?? Stuffing with gravy, jello salad (the rich kind flavored with tons of dairy products), pies, probably a gazillion calories a plateful. All weekend. It was great!
But now it's time to come back to reality. Sigh. Sure was fun while it lasted.
On the knitting front, I worked the Moonlight Mohair shawl down to the last row. Now all that's left is the edging. I think I'm just going to work a little picot edge, but I'm debating whether to put a little gold bead on each picot. I'm thinking a little weight around the edge might help it hang nicely. And I've been keen to put some beads in my knitting ever since Kate and I went to see the Yarn Harlot and I saw a lace shawl with beads that absolutely made me swoon. I should ever knit anything half that beautiful. Any opinions on beads out there?
So last night I picked up my "colorwork" socks again (in the sense that gray, black, and white can be considered colors). These are the ones with the Fair Isle work on the foot. They have been going very slowly because I have been following the old teaching that you have to wrap the yarns around each other as you change colors. So after every round, I have to stop and un-twist the two yarns. Bleh. Of course, halfway through it, I read that people don't do that in Fair Isle knitting and it works just fine, but then I got paranoid and decided I didn't want to switch in the middle, in case you could tell the difference. So doing all this work while knowing I probably didn't have to do it really helped my motivation, too.
And then -- a miracle -- last night I picked them up and realized, I'm far enough up to turn the heels! One last untwisting and I was back to knitting solid color rows. Hallelujah! Thank you, God! Going up the leg, there are just two narrow bands of Fair Isle, and when I get to them I am NOT going to wrap the yarns around each other. I can't believe how happy this makes me!
But now it's time to come back to reality. Sigh. Sure was fun while it lasted.
On the knitting front, I worked the Moonlight Mohair shawl down to the last row. Now all that's left is the edging. I think I'm just going to work a little picot edge, but I'm debating whether to put a little gold bead on each picot. I'm thinking a little weight around the edge might help it hang nicely. And I've been keen to put some beads in my knitting ever since Kate and I went to see the Yarn Harlot and I saw a lace shawl with beads that absolutely made me swoon. I should ever knit anything half that beautiful. Any opinions on beads out there?
So last night I picked up my "colorwork" socks again (in the sense that gray, black, and white can be considered colors). These are the ones with the Fair Isle work on the foot. They have been going very slowly because I have been following the old teaching that you have to wrap the yarns around each other as you change colors. So after every round, I have to stop and un-twist the two yarns. Bleh. Of course, halfway through it, I read that people don't do that in Fair Isle knitting and it works just fine, but then I got paranoid and decided I didn't want to switch in the middle, in case you could tell the difference. So doing all this work while knowing I probably didn't have to do it really helped my motivation, too.
And then -- a miracle -- last night I picked them up and realized, I'm far enough up to turn the heels! One last untwisting and I was back to knitting solid color rows. Hallelujah! Thank you, God! Going up the leg, there are just two narrow bands of Fair Isle, and when I get to them I am NOT going to wrap the yarns around each other. I can't believe how happy this makes me!
Friday, November 20, 2009
turkeyturkeyturkeyturkey
My brain is all about Thanksgiving these days. Peter's family is coming up, so we should be 10 people. Not huge, but there's a certain amount of stuff you just have to do no matter how many people are coming. So I'm in full list-making mode. It's what I do when I get stressed.
Last summer we joined a CSA out here. We belonged to one in the Chicago area, and we had a good experience with it, so we found one out here. They're a start-up, and more and more they're getting into raising animals as well. So this weekend I have a turkey coming from them. The bird they dressed out last week for practice came in at 20 lb. Could be a big one! The chickens I bought from them over the summer were very tasty, so I'm looking forward to it.
Still, I think I'm gonna buy me a good old Butterball for the Big Day. I worry some about the CSA turkey maybe being tougher (being free range) or maybe not having as much breast meat as a store turkey. Both of those things were true of the chickens. I just want everyone to have the full turkey experience they have grown to expect on Thanksgiving.
To all those people who say, "don't be boring, try something different this year!" I say, "don't mess with my Thanksgiving!" Traditional all the way, otherwise I feel cheated. So no turkey experiments. I'll cook it later for us when we run out of leftovers or for Christmas or something. You know what I mean?
Well, enough of my rambling. Back to work.
Last summer we joined a CSA out here. We belonged to one in the Chicago area, and we had a good experience with it, so we found one out here. They're a start-up, and more and more they're getting into raising animals as well. So this weekend I have a turkey coming from them. The bird they dressed out last week for practice came in at 20 lb. Could be a big one! The chickens I bought from them over the summer were very tasty, so I'm looking forward to it.
Still, I think I'm gonna buy me a good old Butterball for the Big Day. I worry some about the CSA turkey maybe being tougher (being free range) or maybe not having as much breast meat as a store turkey. Both of those things were true of the chickens. I just want everyone to have the full turkey experience they have grown to expect on Thanksgiving.
To all those people who say, "don't be boring, try something different this year!" I say, "don't mess with my Thanksgiving!" Traditional all the way, otherwise I feel cheated. So no turkey experiments. I'll cook it later for us when we run out of leftovers or for Christmas or something. You know what I mean?
Well, enough of my rambling. Back to work.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Blue Sox
Here's a picture of the blue socks I just finished for my sister-in-law Barb. You can almost see that there's something in there where the ribs widen out. Those are the purled fish shapes. When I gave them to her, Peter asked her what she saw, and she said footballs. Oh, well, she's a huge sports fan, she'd probably rather have footballs than fish, so I'll go with that.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Hello, World!
This blog is for my friend, Kate. Ta da, you got your wish!
I didn't do so well on keeping up in Facebook, let's see what I can do with a blog.
Let's see, what have I been up to? Just finished a pair of socks for my sister-in-law's birthday. It was Monday, we'll be celebrating this weekend. The yarn was a variegated blue I got in Las Vegas. Remember the story I told you about yarn shops coming to me? I did the tops in a rib, but then made some of the ribs flare out in spots, and I put little fishes in purl stitches into the flared bits. It's hard to describe, it's going to need a photo.
Now I have two projects under way. One is a shawl in Lion Brand Moonlight Mohair. I got it about a year ago at Ollie's Bargain Barn (or something like that). My other sister-in-law discovered it: bins of sparkly mohair blend, normally $9 a ball, for $2 each. We went wild. I bought a bunch in a pretty, honey brown colorway. Good tones for me. The shawl is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Knitting Around". Circular in back, square in front. Maybe I can scan in the diagram in the book so you can get the idea of the shape. It's very warm to work on. I don't know where I'll ever wear anything this sparkly, but I'm loving it.
The other project is a pair of socks. Color work in yarns I bought at the Sheep and Wool Festival in May. Well, greys and white and black. I use the term "color" loosely. Black toes, then there's kind of a fair isle type pattern in grey and white up the foot (that's where I am now), then there'll be a black heel and a dark grey top with a couple bands of fair isle type decoration. Most of the fancy work is on the foot. It's going slowly, but I love the pattern. My mom thinks I'm kind of crazy because, of course, the foot spends most of its time inside your shoe, so who's going to see all this intricate fair isle work? But I'll know it's there, and besides, I prefer to wear slip-on shoes. I'll just look for every excuse to slip them off when I wear these socks. Okay, maybe I am kind of crazy.
Anyway, that's about it for now. Pass my link on to Blond Knitter, too, okay? You'd be amazed how often I think of you!
I didn't do so well on keeping up in Facebook, let's see what I can do with a blog.
Let's see, what have I been up to? Just finished a pair of socks for my sister-in-law's birthday. It was Monday, we'll be celebrating this weekend. The yarn was a variegated blue I got in Las Vegas. Remember the story I told you about yarn shops coming to me? I did the tops in a rib, but then made some of the ribs flare out in spots, and I put little fishes in purl stitches into the flared bits. It's hard to describe, it's going to need a photo.
Now I have two projects under way. One is a shawl in Lion Brand Moonlight Mohair. I got it about a year ago at Ollie's Bargain Barn (or something like that). My other sister-in-law discovered it: bins of sparkly mohair blend, normally $9 a ball, for $2 each. We went wild. I bought a bunch in a pretty, honey brown colorway. Good tones for me. The shawl is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Knitting Around". Circular in back, square in front. Maybe I can scan in the diagram in the book so you can get the idea of the shape. It's very warm to work on. I don't know where I'll ever wear anything this sparkly, but I'm loving it.
The other project is a pair of socks. Color work in yarns I bought at the Sheep and Wool Festival in May. Well, greys and white and black. I use the term "color" loosely. Black toes, then there's kind of a fair isle type pattern in grey and white up the foot (that's where I am now), then there'll be a black heel and a dark grey top with a couple bands of fair isle type decoration. Most of the fancy work is on the foot. It's going slowly, but I love the pattern. My mom thinks I'm kind of crazy because, of course, the foot spends most of its time inside your shoe, so who's going to see all this intricate fair isle work? But I'll know it's there, and besides, I prefer to wear slip-on shoes. I'll just look for every excuse to slip them off when I wear these socks. Okay, maybe I am kind of crazy.
Anyway, that's about it for now. Pass my link on to Blond Knitter, too, okay? You'd be amazed how often I think of you!
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