Small blessings

In the midst of this stupid knee thing (MRI on Tuesday, orthopedist appointment tomorrow), I've had to work from home, as sitting in chairs for very long isn't very much fun for me. Though they've found additional work for me to do remotely, in addition to my normal duties that I'm trying to keep up with via a Citrix connection, you know there's some knitting happening.

The mitered rug that turned into a blanket is slowly pluggin' along. It's 7 blocks long and currently 4 blocks wide...which translates to being about 6' long and 3.5' or so wide. It's still an entertaining knit, which is good, because it's a LONG knit. I'm planning on making a square, or go until I can't complete a long row of blocks. The upside is that I'm using up this boucle that I've been hauling around with me for years. I think I bought it a month or two after I moved back to the DC area, so that'd be nearly 4 years ago, and I continually failed to find a good use for it before. Also, this is *big* yarn that takes up a lot of stash space. Each skein is 11 oz and about a foot long by 5" tall, which, even when taking into account the squishability of yarn, is a lot of room. I initially only thought I had three, which would have made a tragically long and narrow blanket, but whilst digging around, I found three more of the blasted things, and now I should get a decent blankie out of it. I'm holding the three strands together to knit it on size 13 needles, thus why it's knitting up relatively quickly. It's definitely a stay-at-home project, with it's size.

Yesterday, as I was working on the other tasks that I was provided with, I was briefly amused to observe that I had four knitting projects within arm's length of me. My spinning wheel is right nearby too, but it taunts me. No knee = no treadling and no new yarn joy.

So, I view this as a prime opportunity to finish up some projects, as I'd discussed before. I can't be distracted by spinning or, you know, moving around, so knitting it is!

Again, photos of stuff will happen someday. I finished my fiery socks last week, and they're quite snazzy, in addition to that oft-mentioned but never photographed grey sweater.

Someday. When I'm not using a cane. *bitter about the cane*

Life requires constant adaptation

Thing the first: I seamed up the grey sweater last night at a 4th of July party. People were somewhere between amused, perplexed and encouraging. Why was I knitting at a party? Because I had to sit quietly, and I might as well be useful if I can't buzz around and be sociable.

Y'see, I've hurt my knee, and now I'm kind of gimpy. I don't know quite what I did, but it is making sort of liquidy popping noises when I go down stairs...or up stairs...and sometimes when I'm just walking. I'm going to give it a week to get better, and then I'll start the referal process required by HMO land to go to a specialist to check it out.

Why does this relate to fibre, aside from the fact I finally finished (ok, there are still ends to weave in...let's not be crazy here.) the sweater? *glances at her wheel* Yeaaaaah. None of that for me for a while. Which vexes me greatly, as I'm almost done with this spinning project and dammit, I just bought a nifty yarn measurererer and and...bah. *grumble*

Also, I got a leeettle enthusiastic with that rug I cast on... now it's going to be a blanket instead. It's just too warm and soft and nice to stand on, and as anyone who has stayed at my house can attest to, I somehow don't have sufficient warm blankets. I don't know how this happened; I think I gave too many away when I stopped crocheting.

At any rate...blanket instead of rug. Sweater almost done (someday there will be pictures). Lots of knitting, since spinning is out. Hopefully there won't be any other new curve balls thrown at me in the future. A girl can dream, can't I?

In which there are rambles.

So, all of our stuff is transferred from point A to point B. All of point A was painted and the keys mailed off (registered mail, since we never heard back from our former landlady).

My wheel has been set up in the living room, so I can be relatively near to the hubby, as well as have streaming music and spinny goodness. I've got the grey sweater out to finish off...but I've only done one little seam so far. I'm much better at knitting than I am at finishing, but I think a lot of people experience that.

Still no word on the job front, which means that I continue to be a stress-monkey. However, I should be heading down to visit Jennie and Laura and Linz, and since I'll be going on official business, I won't have to pay for the vast majority of it. Yay! I apparently keep a whole snotload of talented friends in one general area. I'll go play with string at them, and they can be awesome in my general direction.

I always feel somewhat lame for not being an artist, as that really was my intent when I was younger. All of those classes and now I'm a quasi-techie managerial type. Enh. However, many years ago I figured out that I'm a pretty handy crafter, but not so good on the artist part. I tend to be better with shaping with my hands (yes, I enjoyed sculpture) and string seems to be what I get along best with. Channelled creativity (ie. patterns) is good for me; the creation from new and novel ideas... not so much. I can tweak the hell out of patterns if so inspired, but I tend to be better at adapting other people's ideas than coming up with my own, which leads to a general sense of ripping people off if you're drawing what amounts to a recreation of their work. This is encouraged with knitting; not as much with drawing.

Er, I've gotten distracted somewhere. And now, your turn.

Look, shiny thing! *scampers off to lift heavy things*

Oops.

I had grand plans to stick to it and finish that sweater. Grand plans.

Yeah.

So, the Crazy House (CH) is big and empty and has wood floors. This means that there is hellacious echoes. The place needs rugs!

You see where this is going?

Yeah.

I've got a bunch of boucle yarn that I've been trying to use for years. YEARS. I hate working with boucle, so it's been a challenge. Therefore, I cast on this.

I'll get back to the sweater when I can find the box it is in again. :p

Moving is revealing.

So, in the midst of packing up all of our stuff to move from house A to house B (which I persist in thinking of as the "Crazy House" due to it's funky level setup), I've had a chance to review and handle nearly everything I've got on the needles.

...damn.

There's a lot of projects that I started and wandered off from. I'm meaning at least two or three good sized boxes of cast-on-get-distracted. It did finally guilt me into finishing the sleeve of a sweater I'd been waiting to knit itself for the last several months...I can't imagine why that strategy didn't work. Funny how much faster things get done if you work on them. Now I've got all of the bits done (yes, I put the project down with the front, back and one sleeve done, and the second sleeve about 3/4 of the way complete), actually finishing it is going to be my top crafting priority in the Crazy House. But after that (between bouts of spinning), I need to FINISH some of these damn pieces. Starteritis is all well and good, but there has to be a case of finishitis.

The current plan is to photograph all of these items and post them on my Flickr account to keep myself accountable. It's somewhat embarrassing how many there are, and hopefully it will motivate me to complete some of these , or send them to the frog pond.

I was tagged, I tell you, tagged!

By HappyGoth

The Rules:

Rules are posted at the beginning. At the end of the post, the player tags 6 people and posts their names. Then the player goes to each of the “named” people’s blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. If you’ve been tagged, you do the same, letting the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer. Your answer, of course, is the answer to the following questions. Here we go!

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Lessee...I think this was the month I was back in ND from Scotland, getting a bunch of dental work done before I went back to Scotland for another 6 months.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today?
Pack more, paint, spin, knit, eat

3. Snacks I enjoy: dried berries (especially strawberries!), maple brown sugar rice cakes, chocolate, popcorn, dill pickles

4. Places I’ve lived: All of them? Ok... Taylor ND, Lauderdale MN (suburb of St. Paul), Bismarck ND, back to Lauderdale, New England ND, Fargo ND, St. Andrews Scotland, Forfar Scotland, East Kilbride Scotland, Herndon VA, Springfield VA, Manassas VA (all three are suburbs of DC), Winnetka CA (suburb of LA), Reston VA, back to Herndon, Vienna VA and now moving back to Springfield. I've not lived anywhere for more than 3 years since I was 12.

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Standard response: Pay off all debt. Buy a ranch. Buy alpacas. Travel the world (prior to the alpacas, methinks). Pay off my family's debts (as a debt reset...this wouldn't mean I'd support them from then on out, just give them a chance to start fresh). I imagine there would be a lot of fibre purchased.

I tag no one, as only HappyGoth and Darcy read my blog. Darcy, you can play along if you like. :)

It has begun.

Oh dear. I got sucked into Etsy.

I don't know how long that link will be good for, but I was obsessing over it for several days and I finally had to get it. Keep in mind, anything that reminds me of flames (work with me here, it looks flame'y to me) is probably going to be purchased by me. I'm an addict.

Fire! Fire! hunnh hunnh hunnh... /end channeling Beavis&Butthead

Learn something new every day.

For example, I just found out that the cast on that I use for damn near everything, the only cast on that I was taught growing up, that Laura had commented "looked kinda lacy"...Yeah, there's a reason for that. It's apparently a specific lace cast on.

Eunny has this to say about it:

Lace Cast On

This is a peculiar cast on, not overly popular or well-known, but very useful. It forms a loopy, open edge, sturdier than a backwards loop, but far more elastic than the long-tail. Worked loosely, this cast on is suitable for any lace project that requires a real beginning row.

The movements are basically that of a cable cast on, except the new stitches are drawn through the last stitch, rather than between the last two stitches.

Well, not well-known or popular unless that's the only one you knew for years. *shifty eyes* On the upside, I'm a learning a lot of other cast ons these days, but I found it somewhat hilarious that when I was casting on some lace, it specified using this cast on and I had to look up to see what it was. *rolls her eyes*

Quack.

My sister, who is pregnant, has requested that I return to the dark side of crochet and produce another one of these blankets. Sigh. The problem with making neat stuff is that you occasionally have to do it more than once. However, the ducks will be multi-coloured, and there may be other kinds of ducks, too! You never know when I'm feelin' wacky with a needle.

Productive usage of time

My manager looked at me today and politely suggested that I work remotely for the remainder of the day so I can be miserable at home instead of at work and I was more than happy to take him up on it.

So far, as I know he doesn't have very high expectations for me when I'm all sore and sickly (massive dental work + sinus infection = I'm so much fun to be around right now), I've instead used my time to teach myself how to knit continental style. People had professed disappointment that I didn't know how, so, I was curious if it was superior. Well, it certainly isn't so far, but I'll keep practicing. I'm much more comfortable with the English style as that's what I learned as a wee one, but I'm open to new knowledge. :)

Now, to attempt to purl...