Oh, yes, and I'm knitting too! The current lap project is a powder blue lacy scarf out of a cashmere/alpaca blend. And I get to be the lucky recipient for this one. It's a pattern I designed myself, especially formulated not to use too terribly much yarn (I only have 3 balls) and yet still allow the softness and beauty of the cashmere to come through. I'll post pics soon!
In other news the X & O scarf was presented to my Sweden living friend this past week and she's off talking about it to everyone and wearing it everywhere. She is urging me to publish as well, but I think that might just be for the bragging rights.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
"Done" as a catchall
At my company I had to get used to all the abbreviations, the expressions, and the new vocabulary when I first started. It took much longer for me however to get used to what has been described to me as "New York Style" hurry talk.
I'm a rather talkative person, and am a big believer in being precise, and usually trying to be as clear as possible often necessitates (or at least is supported by) longer sentences with more words. Because of my wordy background it made it difficult for me to feel at peace with the fact that when I sent an email to a department in our corporate office asking for multiple things and often posing (what I thought were complex)questions and I would receive a one-word response:
DONE.
Was it all done? Or just the first query? Were my questions unnecessary and need I no longer worry about the problems? Do I need to check an make sure all the changes were done?
I eventually got used to "done" and now find it funny when it pops into my mind after someone or something presents a long list of questions or some complex situation that "feel" as if they need a detailed or explainitory response.
I'm a rather talkative person, and am a big believer in being precise, and usually trying to be as clear as possible often necessitates (or at least is supported by) longer sentences with more words. Because of my wordy background it made it difficult for me to feel at peace with the fact that when I sent an email to a department in our corporate office asking for multiple things and often posing (what I thought were complex)questions and I would receive a one-word response:
DONE.
Was it all done? Or just the first query? Were my questions unnecessary and need I no longer worry about the problems? Do I need to check an make sure all the changes were done?
I eventually got used to "done" and now find it funny when it pops into my mind after someone or something presents a long list of questions or some complex situation that "feel" as if they need a detailed or explainitory response.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
That irksome feeling at the edge of your mind
Have you ever made a mistake in your knitting that you weren't sure you could fix?
No lifelines?
Lots of yarn overs?
Not sure if ripping back or tinking down was an option?
Have you ever had to let that mistake sit for HOURS before you could fix it?
Towards the end of SnB tonight I was gesturing and pulled my work back on my needles so that I could use the needle as a "prop"...I dropped two stiches in the middle of a row. It was in the middle of a Purse Stitch section (lots of YO, Purl 2Tog--on both sides kind of stuff). I tried to pick up, but it had dropped down two rows.
I tried to figure it out for about 10 minutes.
My cashmere/alpaca yarn started to fuzz out a bit.
I decided to drop down the ten stiches of purse stich for three rows and re-knit them.
I moved to a better lit seat.
I frogged back the section and picked up stitches and re-worked them.
I looked over the work.
Still something wrong, but now across an entire row, rather than right in the middle.
No time left I had to pack up and go. It's been 5 hours and I still haven't fixed it.
It's haunting my mind.
...I thought knitting was supposed to EASE stress. This is worse than worrying if I left the oven on and the water running combined! Get it OUT!
Yes, yes, I know the only way to make it stop.
I'm off to frog some more.
No lifelines?
Lots of yarn overs?
Not sure if ripping back or tinking down was an option?
Have you ever had to let that mistake sit for HOURS before you could fix it?
Towards the end of SnB tonight I was gesturing and pulled my work back on my needles so that I could use the needle as a "prop"...I dropped two stiches in the middle of a row. It was in the middle of a Purse Stitch section (lots of YO, Purl 2Tog--on both sides kind of stuff). I tried to pick up, but it had dropped down two rows.
I tried to figure it out for about 10 minutes.
My cashmere/alpaca yarn started to fuzz out a bit.
I decided to drop down the ten stiches of purse stich for three rows and re-knit them.
I moved to a better lit seat.
I frogged back the section and picked up stitches and re-worked them.
I looked over the work.
Still something wrong, but now across an entire row, rather than right in the middle.
No time left I had to pack up and go. It's been 5 hours and I still haven't fixed it.
It's haunting my mind.
...I thought knitting was supposed to EASE stress. This is worse than worrying if I left the oven on and the water running combined! Get it OUT!
Yes, yes, I know the only way to make it stop.
I'm off to frog some more.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Car go "VROOM VROOM!"
So this is my knitting blog and I don't normally wander about my life walking into the sections that include my dancing, my car, my job and other scenery, but since I brought up my car accident in a previous post, I feel justified.
My car has been in the shop for the last two weeks and I've been racking up the miles on a Suzuki Forenza (took it from a tiny 200 miles to a respectable 740 miles--yes, I commute that much). I knew before the accident that I was going to need work done on my exhaust as it had been making some noise for a couple of weeks. I had taken it in for an estimate and they had told me that it would be $300 for a new "Flex Pipe" and all the labor it would take to get the rusted one off and a new one on. I had put it off, as I didn't really have an extra $300 to blow and it wasn't too terribly bad.
The insurance agent had called and mentioned the exhaust problem and said it wouldn't be covered, as it was a pre-existing problem and said that I "really should get it fixed". I, of course, replied that with the $500 deductible for an accident that wasn't my fault in any way I was in even LESS of a position to have it fixed now. He gave me the name of a mechanic who he said might be able to "just weld it up temporarily". I figured it probably wouldn't hurt to take the number, and use it whenever I decided to have the work done.
WELL.....I went to pick my car up this morning. I waited while they fixed the glue on a side light. I cleared out my rental car. I got in my car and waited for them to open the garage door. I turned the key.
VROOOOOOOOM!
My exhaust now sounds like I'm driving some sort of monster truck with a straight pipe and no muffler. I'm guessing the accident sped the process up a bit, because it was DEFINITELY not that loud before the accident.
I drove to work today with thoughts of old ladies cowering and small children scurrying aside as I drove by. Even though I quickly adjusted to the power my Volvo has that my rental did not, I did not adjust as well to the growling roar of my exhaust, so everytime I punched the gas, I cringed a bit as well.
...There goes new yarn buying in the next month or two.
My car has been in the shop for the last two weeks and I've been racking up the miles on a Suzuki Forenza (took it from a tiny 200 miles to a respectable 740 miles--yes, I commute that much). I knew before the accident that I was going to need work done on my exhaust as it had been making some noise for a couple of weeks. I had taken it in for an estimate and they had told me that it would be $300 for a new "Flex Pipe" and all the labor it would take to get the rusted one off and a new one on. I had put it off, as I didn't really have an extra $300 to blow and it wasn't too terribly bad.
The insurance agent had called and mentioned the exhaust problem and said it wouldn't be covered, as it was a pre-existing problem and said that I "really should get it fixed". I, of course, replied that with the $500 deductible for an accident that wasn't my fault in any way I was in even LESS of a position to have it fixed now. He gave me the name of a mechanic who he said might be able to "just weld it up temporarily". I figured it probably wouldn't hurt to take the number, and use it whenever I decided to have the work done.
WELL.....I went to pick my car up this morning. I waited while they fixed the glue on a side light. I cleared out my rental car. I got in my car and waited for them to open the garage door. I turned the key.
VROOOOOOOOM!
My exhaust now sounds like I'm driving some sort of monster truck with a straight pipe and no muffler. I'm guessing the accident sped the process up a bit, because it was DEFINITELY not that loud before the accident.
I drove to work today with thoughts of old ladies cowering and small children scurrying aside as I drove by. Even though I quickly adjusted to the power my Volvo has that my rental did not, I did not adjust as well to the growling roar of my exhaust, so everytime I punched the gas, I cringed a bit as well.
...There goes new yarn buying in the next month or two.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
How unique do I need my work to be?
So occassionally I do something like the Scull & Crossbones tote in which I don't mess with the pattern and make something exactly as told...but that's rather rare for me. And I work pretty hard at figuring things out in order to change patterns to suit my aesthetic. I like that they are unique and exactly what I want.
This is why I'm struggling with the idea proposed to me by several friends that I should *gasp* PUBLISH my patterns. It was brought up specifically with regards to the X&O cabled lattice scarf I did and I've been considering it for my green scarf and variation on the Tivoli as well.
So I'm still undecided on the issue of whether I want a bunch of other people having matching items, but I'm toying with the idea. In the meantime I had my brother take some pics of the scarves in question just in case. Here are a couple of preview shots:
This is why I'm struggling with the idea proposed to me by several friends that I should *gasp* PUBLISH my patterns. It was brought up specifically with regards to the X&O cabled lattice scarf I did and I've been considering it for my green scarf and variation on the Tivoli as well.
So I'm still undecided on the issue of whether I want a bunch of other people having matching items, but I'm toying with the idea. In the meantime I had my brother take some pics of the scarves in question just in case. Here are a couple of preview shots:
Skull & Crossbones Tote Felted
I was right to worry about the twisted stitches from the back showing, but partway into felting I used single stranded yarn to do a little ladder stitch to tighten up some of the gaps and not too much of the contrast color can be seen through now. Some of the stitch definition from the white still shows, but the black is completely felted with an occassional ribbed look where you can make out vertical columns of what were stitches.
I'll post pics, but you have to excuse their poor quality, as my camera phone is much less than ideal for all matters of quality, detail, color, exposure or focus (it does do an excellent job at forming perfectly rectangular blurry images however).
In other news my week looked like this:
Last Wednesday= haircut (slightly longer than shown in front--I had it tucked behind my ear)
Last Thursday= My car being hit while in a parking lot
Today = A 40 degree shift in weather--to a freak Mid March snowstorm
I'll post pics, but you have to excuse their poor quality, as my camera phone is much less than ideal for all matters of quality, detail, color, exposure or focus (it does do an excellent job at forming perfectly rectangular blurry images however).
In other news my week looked like this:
Last Wednesday= haircut (slightly longer than shown in front--I had it tucked behind my ear)
Last Thursday= My car being hit while in a parking lot
Today = A 40 degree shift in weather--to a freak Mid March snowstorm
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Skull & Crossbones Tote
Every knitter should have a bit of the ol' Pirate spirit with her, right? So I was really excited when I saw the Skull & Crossbones tote bag pattern on HelloYarn.com a while back and ordered some Virgin Wool just for the project, and finally got to it this past week.
I started while at my parents house this past weekend, but left the Oh-So-Scary Intarsia work for Wednesday. I am happy to say that I have intarsia-ed without major injury or hairloss and feel all the better for it now.
I think the true test will be how well it holds up when I felt it tonight! I'm a little worried about some of those twisted and stranded colors showing through to the other side when it's felted, but no use worrying until there's actually a problem, right?
I'll keep you updated!
I started while at my parents house this past weekend, but left the Oh-So-Scary Intarsia work for Wednesday. I am happy to say that I have intarsia-ed without major injury or hairloss and feel all the better for it now.
I think the true test will be how well it holds up when I felt it tonight! I'm a little worried about some of those twisted and stranded colors showing through to the other side when it's felted, but no use worrying until there's actually a problem, right?
I'll keep you updated!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
