Socks and Homeland Security

So...today was step 4 of step eleventy billion of the British visa application process: biometric readings. That requires printing off a ton of paperwork, going downtown, paying $20 to park and be told you've got the wrong paperwork. But before they tell you that you haven't got the right forms, they TAKE THE NEEDLES OUT OF YOUR SOCK SO YOU DON'T HURT ANYONE IN THE OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY. I wasn't going to do anything irrational, until they took away the needles. I said I would rather them just take the sock and give both back as I was leaving, but that just makes too much sense. They let me keep the now mangled sock and gave me back my needles afterwards. So I sat there for 2 hours with a mangled, needle-less sock in my lap.

I really thought the US government would make it a little easier to LEAVE.

Now something less angry: My purse had a lovely time at the new Colt's Stadium last night!

Chicago, Irony, Handspun, Loopy Yarns and High Heels

Not quite in that order.

For those of you who appreciate a good dose of irony: An $80,000 car being repocessed. It wouldn't be nearly as good if the vanity plate said anything other than:

On to the regularly schedule knit blogging:

So last night, shortly before the closing ceremonies and the official olympic handoff to London, my red CPH in need of a button band sat down to finish the project, nearly 12 hours late. Pathetic, I know. So my dad, mom and I sat down to watch the olympics, turned on the tv and.... saw that our cable was out. My mother, who is a big fan of closing/opening ceremonies suggested that we go to my Aunt's house, which is about 2 miles away from ours. Cool. Crisis averted.

At the Aunt's house, during row 2 of the button band, my circ. broke. Like seriously. So I'm scrambling to pick up nearly 400 stitches to save them. It took entirely too long. Should have frogged it and started again later. But not today. I was destined to hold off on finishing for another few days.

I did get a little spinning time in this weekend...here is some of my handspun cotton (kinda, not really handspun). I'm calling this yarn "Vintage Threads" because...well....it is. I found a giant pile of old sewing thread in terrible 1970's colors in my great-g-ma's house after she died and I took them home with me. And spun them into yarn. I think it turned out pretty neat. It's a two ply yarn, with each ply of yarn being 6 strands of cotton. This is heavy duty cotton. Seriously heavy duty. And just plain heavy.

Because today I am in Chicago with my dad (he's in a business meeting so I have three days to do whatever. I'm totally cool with that). We got here around 2 (chi-town time), shortly after I finished square 23/25 of my Lizard Ridge...score. I talked briefly with the concierge about yarn and high heels, and she pointed me in the direction of Loopy Yarns, which is where Franklin told me to go. He was right...pretty awesome. Want to see what I got? Well, you're going to anyway.

One is another skien of Noro Kureyon (which I totally didn't need) for my Lizard Ridge. The other is a Trekking yarn (not sure which) in the colorway "Brazil." Since we are here to see Wicked, these will be my Wicked Monkeys (guess what pattern I'm going to use!)

Of course on the way back from Loopy Yarns I couldn't help but notice the abundance of non-yarn stores, like Charlotte Rousse and Old Navy and Macy's. I bought the perfect corset and pair of leopard pumps at Charlotte Rousse, (corset for catwoman outfit, shoes because I just HAD to have them) some school staples at Old Navy and some naughty underpants at Macy's (also for catwoman outfit).

Things I learned from the Knitting Olypmics

1. Three projects is a bit too much for an ADDKnitter with a job.

2. Yarn prices increase logistically, Rowan prices increase expontentially.

3. Shit happens. Knit through it.

4. Frat Boys are stupid. Stay away from them. (I know this doesn't apply to knitting, but it's a sound general rule)

5. Dye lots change. So does fiber content. Buy your yarn at the same time if possible, and within the same year if not possible.

6. Keep in mind your physical abnormalities (ie absurdly long torso). Will this take longer to make 2 sweaters with? Yes.

Anyone else learn any lessons from the knitting olympics? Feel free to leave them in the Comments.

I think for the next knitting olympics I will make a dishcloth. I think I can handle that.

So Zak is an asshole

and just "isn't that into me". Of course he couldn't let me know this himself, he told his friend to tell me.

To the friend: thanks for the message, I will stop knitting so quickly to get through the projects I wanted to finish before calling Zak.

To Zak: grow a pair. asshole.

Still working on the button band on the CPH hoodie, will probably finish socks on trip to Chicago. Woohoo! I will certainly add to the stash this trip: anyone have any Chicago yarn store favs I should know about?

Me-ow!

So...as I an nearing the end of the quest for the catwoman outfit (still need the knickers, a lovely corset top was on sale at Victoria's Secret online store) I decided that knitting ears would be much more comfortable than buying cheap ears on a headband made for a 5 year old. So I did just that.

If you would like to make your own ears for some reason, it's easy to do!

First, find some little hair clippies that are COMFORTABLE and strong enough to hold up an ear on. Then knit (on dpns) little triangles, starting with 28 stitches and decreasing 4 stitches every other row until you have 4 stitches left, pull yarn through the stitches and run the teeth of the clip through the bottom of the ears, making sure they sit nicely on your head. This way you can have curls without having a headband stretch them out of shape!

I also finished the RS Mystery Scarf. What is the RS Mystery scarf? Firstly, I should explain that RS is an anonymous blog commenter (see Man Laws, Jan. 14) and he ordered a handspun handknit alpaca scarf....so glad it's off the needles and in the mail. Here is a terrible picture of me wearing an alpaca scarf in 85 degree weather, telling my mum which button to press on the camera while the cat tries to climb up my leg. Enjoy!

Now for some olympic knitting....if I knit for the rest of tonight and most of tomorrow, I may be able to finish 2/3 olympic knitting projects which should make up for distractions like class drama and dog drama and boys.....mmmmm....there I go drooling again.

I'm out! Hopefully an FO tomorrow, but by now you've learned not to count on it, haven't you?

Dear New Shoes

I love you. I love you. I love you. I can't wait to take you to Chicago next week!

And yes...I'm still NOT knitting. Hmmmm....this is certainly a bad time for my mojo to go on vacation.

I am not knitting

Instead I am baking with Ingrid. It's good fun. Everyone should bake with Ingrid.

Toffee is doing a little better...we thought we were going to lose her for a couple days, but she has started eating and drinking water again. More updates on her later...

Handspun roadkill

So we've all been to the Wool Room at the State Fair by now...so I will show you some of my purchases. One of them was a bag of all sorts of fibers in all sorts of colors, from hot green BFL curls to a light pink bamboo to a blob of copper strands, I had to have it. I spun it up and said to myself, "what the hell was I thinking?" It actually plied out pretty neat though, or at least I think. Not that I feel the need to do it again anytime soon...but it was fun throwing all those fibers together. I did leave quite a bit of the grab bag contents out as they were just too felted to spin...and the bobbin was already full. Here is a pyramid of the pictures.

I also made *a little* progress on the Fleckity sweater since I got my new yarn...and ohmygod the dye lot is nowhere close to matching. I knew there would be a little difference, but wow. The new stuff is lighter and doesn't have nearly as many tweedy bits. Hopefully since it is the top of the back and the hood, the hood will cover that part and not too many people will notice. The fronts will be knitted with 1 strand of the old stuff and 1 strand of the new stuff to stop that kind of thing from happening where people will actually be looking at it. Oh well, this is what I get for waiting 5 years to knit this into a sweater. Lesson learned- use the stash before the yarn becomes obsolete. (see the line on the back where I started the new yarn? this really blows)

On a non-knitting note, Toffee has been at the emergency vet for the past couple days. Her pancreas is shutting down because of her doggy diabetes...I really hope she makes it through this.

Yay!

Yay! Look what came in the mail today!

If you need reasonably priced Rowan anytime soon with free shipping to the US, check out cucumberpatch.co.uk . Seriously...this is awesome.

AHHHHHH!!!!!!

So...hopefully my dramas are over for a while. It turns out that I was registered as a full time student at Essex, but none of my classes were ever entered...and so I had no classes to take. That has changed as of this morning, and I am now signed up for 4, which makes me a full time student. They're not bad classes either...which is great. Yesterday the British office told me that there were 5 options as far as classes go, and none of them were English Lit classes. So I would go to England and have the choice of Physics, Advanced Chem, Intro to Film, German, and Calculus. I told them I wasn't going to hop on the plane for classes I could fail at Purdue...it was just too expensive.

Today I got an email saying that I was in 2 Literature classes, 1 history class, and still the film class...but 3/4 is not bad. I'm going to try and get into another Lit class and drop Film, and get another history class (I've already taken the Purdue equivalent to this one I'm signed up for). So I will be taking advantage of Knit Stop's sale (thanks Janet!) and buying some yarn to make scarves for all the Brits that have pulled strings to get me in actual classes...because my Purdue advisor definently did not and that's how I got in this giant mess in the first place. Thank God this is over. Now I just need to get my English address and then I can apply for the Visa.

K...that's Essex in a nutshell. I had an appointment in Carmel yesterday and after I got out I figured I had time for a quick trip to Keepsakes. After making a million calls to directory assistance, I learned that the address on the internet was wrong and they had moved. Wonderful. Found the new store nearly an hour later...it was almost worth it. I bought some sock yarn because it is universally aknowledged that sock yarn does not count as stash, and a new color of Kureyon that I may or may not have seen before, but have certainly forgotten about. Now I'm actually missing the Lizard Ridge but have vowed not to work on it until the Olympics are over or in the very unlikely event that I finish my 3 projects before the Olympics are over. I do need to finish a the handspun alpaca scarf now that I've gotten my spinning wheel in working order again (another long story).

And now...stash pictures from yesterday's adventure. See you later!

Cascade Heritage, 75% Superwash Merino, 25% Nylon, Fingering weight, color 9848

1 crisis averted, 1 still not

SO...I have solved one of my biggest problems today- the lack of Red Rowan Felted Tweed to finish my sweater. I got on E-bay (my arch nemesis) and bid on 5 skiens of felted tweed for $8 a piece- the average price is $10. So I was pretty pleased with myself. Won the yarn and found out- oh snap. This is coming from England. I can't pay that much in shipping for that yarn! Then after another look- crisis averted. Free shipping to the US....from England. I'm not complaining- as long as it gets here before September 20th.

Another problem just popped up the other day...my study abroad advisor never sent in my course list to Essex...and whatdoyahknow- I'm not signed up for any classes. Spent all day on the phone with a different advisor at Purdue and told her which Purdue classes I still needed and she said she would find the Essex equivalents. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, I could graduate from Essex in one year/three trimesters.

That would be kinda cool. So until she sends that list, I can only wait. And knit. And I totally turned the heel on the first sock today. Oh yeah....

More Olympic Knitting! Yay!

I just got home from work today, so I haven't knitted a stitch since the men's relay swimming last night. I did, however, get to 8 inches in the purple and green sweater (currently there's a picture of Jing Jing, the olympic mascot in it's place on ravelry) and am getting close to starting the heel on the first sock. A couple more pattern repeats ought to do it- I have a ton of Trekking and I only plan on making 1 pair of socks out of it, so I might as well make them a little longer than usual. I'd rather take an extra day or two to make them longer than regret making them so short to save time. On a related to socks note, I am slightly more happy with the pattern/yarn combo as the pattern has become easier to see as the sock grows. Knitting in natural light helps...nothing looks all that great at 1 am in front of the television.

I've put in a whopping 4 rows of the Fleckity hoodie (we renamed it at Knit night to describe the tweed yarn) since the games started, and it is now at 14 inches. I will probably knit to 16 or 17 inches before starting armholes to make up for having the world's longest torso. Here's progress pics...now it's naptime.

Happy Olympics!

How are your olympic projects going?

I'm doing quite well on the Sockput, not that great on the Sweater Sprint, and may have to drop out of the WIPWrestling as I can't find any more yarn for it for under $40. That being said, I might make good tips tonight and be able to spend that much for a hood. Damn Rowan, I love you but that is ridiculous.

I also spent yesterday at the State Fair and got some great pictures...which I don't feel like uploading right now. Howabout I do one a day for a while, that way I don't bog down my blog with pictures of sheep...that sounds fair.

Here's sockput progress (not acurate as this picture was taken before I watched and knitted through Women's beach volleyball) but whatever:

I love the pattern, but not with this yarn. It's just too dark, you can hardly tell there's even a pattern. Plus there aren't any rest rows on this...I would kill to just knit one row plain. The yarn is Trekking XXL by the way in a colorway that would be much better NOT in the artichoke pattern. Back I go to the Sockput or perhaps the Sweater Sprint, and I leave you with 1 state fair picture.

Happy Knitting to all and GO AMERICANS!

Updates

Shortly after 2pm yesterday, I fed Jack Sparrow, sat down and held him and talked to him (google says you have to do this or they become depressed) and about 5 minutes into our conversation, he just died. He went totally limp and stopped breathing. It was very sad. Here is the last picture of him and his Brown Sheep/eyelash friend. It was taken during a 5 am feeding and so the picture isn't great.

Since all my knitting time has been spent holding the bird and feeding him, I don't have a lot to show for two weeks of knitting. I made 2 and a half baby blankets, finished a pumpkin hat, spun and knitted about a third of a scarf, finished the sleeves on my red CPH and started the body. Since I'm knitting the body all together (162 stitches across) it's taking a long time. It's the kind of project where you can knit for 3 hours and not tell a difference. I'm at about 9 inches right now and will probably knit to around 15 or 16 before I start making the armholes to make up for having the world's longest torso.

I have sort of decided on my knitting for olympics (about time, eh?) I have decided that I will be making a hoodie very similar to the PoCo hoodie (Cascade quatro top-down raglan for those who aren't overly farmiliar) and a pair of socks. Trouble is, I haven't decided on a yarn or pattern and I haven't swatched for anything either. I should probably get on that.

So I am down for the:

Sweater Sprint

Sockput

and WIP Wrestling (CPH Hoodie- can't lose momentum on this one)

I am entered in Team Indiana and Team Middle Earth for all but the CPH hoodie- a Team Middle Earth representative send me a not-so-nice letter saying that entering in the WIP Wrestling was taking the easy way out and I would have to frog my project and start again during the opening ceremonies. Instead I left Team Middle Earth. I think casting on a hoodie and a pair of socks is enough new projects for a 17 day period.

That's about it- I need to go run my 2 miles now so I can fit into my Catwoman costume on September 20th- see you tonight!

Handspun!

Hey there!

The bird is still alive, my baby brother is 18 years old, and I actually spun something!
It's roughly 150 yards of merino/bamboo that I found at Franklin this June. I started spinning it on double drive, put it to the side, spun a bunch of other stuff on single drive and went back to it, but forgot I had spun the first part on double drive. The result? 80 yards of fingering weight and then a gradual fade into worsted for the rest of it. Oh well...one day I will use it for...something. Here it is! Any ideas?

Jack (the) Sparrow

So...I think it's about time for a Sparrow update that happens to be tied in with my knitting.

On Thursday, about an hour before knit-night, the weaker and smaller of the birds died. I did not expect him to make it as long as he did because he had numerous scratches when I picked him up. I kept them as clean as I could but birds are not exactly clean animals, and the scratches became infected and he died. His brother stopped eating immediately. I was sure that he would die within the 24 hours following his brother's death, but to my surprise I came home from work friday night to Jack Sparrow, still alive, but barely so. It dawned on me...he needed a friend. Since I wasn't going to go around to nests and steal other baby sparrows, I knitted (see- knitting content) a small, bird-sized fuzzball out of wool and eyelash yarn. I took a couple pictures but none turned out well, so you'll have to trust me on this one. I'll try again for pictures later. I made the "friend" and stuck it in the bowl with Jack Sparrow, and to my delight, Jack started snuggling with his "friend" immediately. Jack and his wooly ball have been inseperable...but I don't care. He started eating again and is almost back to where he was before his brother died. Jack Sparrow may make it after all.

More knitting content: did you guys get your 20% ENTIRE PURCHASE coupons from Michaels? I spent mine all on baby yarn, which is great because I've sold several blankets this week. Horray for money!

That's all for now... happy knitting to all and to all a good night.