the boogeyman's wife

pinocchio by carlo collodi

2011-05-12T15:15:00.000-08:00

ever since i stumbled across a quote about teaching the alphabet to the ants, pinocchio has been on my to-read list. it's bit of a random story, not surprising for a print-by-the-week story. pinocchio's adventures include the ones featured in the disney film, as well as more outrageous ones. he goes from one scrape to another despite his promises to work hard and obey. eventually his bouts of diligence are longer than his vagabond periods, but it is only when he must nurse geppetto that he works and serves his father with his whole heart.

there's an undercurrent of christian ethics seen in the oft-repeated morals of working hard and helping others. overtones of the prodigal son story and bits of isaiah (where the righteous are judged against and the prisoners are set free) show up in the second half of the story. pinocchio's is a highly dramatized, often ridiculous, story that is nevertheless easy to relate to. i love the repeated maxim that little boys who won't learn and work turn into little donkeys, which is literally fulfilled by pinocchio and his friends. if i had a little boy, that's what i'd tell him to get him to do his homework.

i am nujood, age 10 and divorced by nujood ali

2011-05-10T13:17:00.016-08:00

this book caught my eye on the fancy updates our library sends out now. very simple and descriptive prose makes for fast reading. the confusion of a 10-yr-old thrust into marriage with no idea what that entails comes through clearly. an insider's picture of life in yemen is marred by violence against women, which is rarely acknowledged and more rarely discussed. i expected some legal drama perhaps. instead, the book is told entirely from nujood's perspective and based on her limited knowledge which only increases its impact. for me, this book touches on the right of any person to make their own choices much more than a western vs. eastern theme. and yet i can't help wondering what men (anyone) are really thinking when they follow destructive traditions.

paper towns by john green

2011-05-09T14:40:00.020-08:00

this is a good YA novel. paper towns starts at the end of high school, with a nerdy guy drooling over the hot girl next door, and his one big chance for adventure. which turns into his chance to (possibly) have the girl of his dreams, solve a mystery and learn how hard it is to truly know anyone. there's introspection on how we relate to and understand others. there's also the obligatory teen drinking and sex although not in painful detail, thankfully. and yet this book is not chained to the stereotypes it invokes and is surprisingly true to reality, where no matter how much you've thought something through and changed your perspective, something can still come out of nowhere and knock you on your back. over and over again. good stuff.

square socks

2011-05-07T07:52:00.000-08:00

since i haven't had much luck with socks for myself lately, another pair for chuck seemed like a good idea. i grabbed a skein from his sock yarn stash (picked out by himself) and got started without thinking too much about it. after testing a couple needle sizes, i got a larger gauge than usual. that was ok, since the yarn seemed like a thicker sock yarn. it's not a very soft yarn, and the swatch felt extremely sturdy, but that was ok too. a sturdy gauge makes for a long-wearing sock. after passing the heel, there was an alarmingly small knob of yarn left. and it really did feel like it would wear like iron, only not in a pleasant way. to appease my growing suspicions, i looked the yarn up on ravelry, where it was clearly marked as a sport weight yarn. yup.

after i frogged that attempt, i moved up a few more needles sizes and got a fabric that might not scour the bottoms of chuck's feet. the first sock jumped off the needles in less than a week, and the second sock quickly followed suit. the pattern is a simple knit and purl texture, perfect for guy socks. standard vertical ribbing didn't work out with the stitch count, so i knit a few rows of horizontal ribbing as that matched the pattern better. the ribbing really flares out, both pre- and post-blocking.

luckily, there's no evidence of that when the socks are worn.

or maybe they just conform really well to chuck's skinny ankles and large calves...............

the road to lisdoonvarna by charles de lint

2011-05-06T14:19:00.014-08:00

this book came out of my owned but unread pile. unlike most of de lint's fantasy books, the road to lisdoonvarna is a straight forward mystery novel. a private detective is trying to find out who raped and beat a friend while taking on a case for a missing teen. some of de lint's trademarks sneak in: a love of celtic music, busking musicians, canadian setting, a native american sidekick, and the idea that we should all help each other as best we can. except for the bad guys, maybe, who take each other out in the end. no surprising twists here, just an enjoyable read.

forest born by shannon hale

2011-05-05T08:19:00.005-08:00

i was delighted to find another installment of the bayern books at the library. this book is the fourth in the series, although i believe each book can stand on its own. each book has examined a different kind of magical speaking and the focus in this book is tree speaking. hale's characters experience the typical faery tale journey of self-discovery, and in the discovery and acceptance of their talents, must learn to use them to reach out to others. the broad trope is the only similarity, as each main character has their own particular problems to solve and faults to overcome.

rin, the main character in forest born, has perhaps the most clearly human problems to resolve, despite her magical abilities. she must learn how to be herself, rather than reflecting others, and discover the truest way to speak with others. as in the previous books, political problems and their resolution form the backdrop for rin's journey through the land and to self-discovery. none of the solutions come easily and rin's difficulties are easy to sympathize with as characteristic of struggles we all go through.

WIP wednesday: knitting retreat

2011-05-04T11:52:00.000-08:00

last week, in anticipation of our local knitting group's yearly retreat, i indulged in some startitis. after all, who wants to run out of projects at a retreat? and not wanting to neglect knitting content, a WIP wednesday to show off progress seemed just the thing.

veil of isis

previously seen in its pre-blob state, the shawl is slowly but surely globbing along. its main weekly feeding is during church, with some snacks sporadically through the week. perhaps at its next check up, i'll measure the cone and try to estimate how far i've come. it's making steady progress through the Amorphous Blob phase and i'm pleased with its growth.

sauna mat

although the sauna mat has been lurking in the side bar, this is its first public appearance. it's knit with worsted weight cotton held doubled and rag strips knit as yarn for contrast, using size 13/ mm needles, and the log cabin construction in mason-dixon knitting. the actual knitting for this went very quickly. weaving in the rag ends, not so quickly. at the retreat, all the ends were woven in while i was distracted by great conversation. now all i need to do is cut more rag for the crochet border.....

spoked stash hat

one day when i wanted a fast, mindless project i grabbed a skein of swedish acrylic off the shelf, picked a pattern largely at random from a recent interweave knits, and cast on. after making bobbles on the second row, the hat is knit in ribbing for 8 inches. very mindless - a bit too much in fact. and not as fast as i imagined in DK weight yarn. so it got some enforced knitting time at the retreat as well and grew at least an inch.

blackwatch swing socks

i matched up a languishing skein of lorna's laces with the pattern sunday swing socks from knitty and had the cuff and one repeat finished before the retreat. the pattern calls for only 3 repeats length-wise before the heel but since this was a mere 5 inches, i added 2 more repeats for an 8" leg. the heel flap is just about done and i should be turning the heel in a day or so.

skewed space dust socks

a few months ago i was gifted a skein of socks that rock (colorway space dust) by a friend with a large STR collection who knew i'd been wanting to try that yarn out. that's right, this is my first time using socks that rock. all the crazy colors seemed perfect for a fairly plain sock but not wanting another easy project, i picked a pattern with an unusual construction. prior to the retreat, i got as far as swatching. at the retreat, i cast on, knit half a foot, frogged it and knit another half a foot. although the pattern is knit on the bias, it can be tried on as you go and, thus far, has been easy to customize. there is supposedly math involved with the heel, so i will try not to get too confident yet. the yarn is great, and although there are many individual colors that i dislike, they are very cheerful all mashed together.

and that's what i've been working on! the retreat was great - we were in a new location this year (touch of wilderness in healy) and it was very open and welcoming, good food, great atmosphere. i think we'll be back next year. it was one of those rare places whose online photos match the reality. we had some fun classes and just enjoyed sitting around talking about everything you could imagine and probably a little you couldn't. i've said it before, and i'll say it again, i love our knitting group. there's such a variety of personalities that there's never a dull moment. in our white elephant exchange (which is a total misnomer, as every package has desirable items) i acquired a smattering of exotic fibers. BFL, alpaca, silk and qiviut all bundled up in a ravelry project bag.

looks like i may have to get a spindle and see if i can make yarn.

heart of gold by sharon shinn

2011-05-03T17:26:00.011-08:00

i followed up on one of the short story worlds from quatrain, which led me to the stand alone book heart of gold. again, i was captivated by the fascinating clash of cultures and races. a matriarchal, blue-skinned race conflicts with a patriarchal, gulden-skinned race over customs legal and private, land control and terrorism. there's also an albino race, although they stay in the background of the story. racial and cultural tension are central to story as the races deal with terrorist acts done in retaliation for land taken over in violation of a treaty. shinn manages to convey both societal and individual reactions to the main and underlying conflicts. she successfully portrays contrasts and conflicts at several levels.

beyond the question of national interest and what means are acceptable to protect that, shinn takes on how our understanding of life is based on culture, upbringing, and individual characteristics, and whether and how people can change. on the personal level, her characters deal with moral dilemmas reflecting those larger issues and how those larger issues affect family and personal relationships. the world of heart of gold is very complex in a subtle way, realistic and highly engaging.

the princess and the hound by mette ivie harrison

2011-05-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

the princess and the hound was a very good story, although the title characters were not the sole focus as the title might lead one to think. fairy tale motifs were used in a new way, to great effect with unexpected twists. the ability to speak with animals is outlawed and the prince who possesses it is forced to hide it for his safety and the good of the kingdom. he also learns to sacrifice his self for the kingdom, until his pending arranged marriage forces him to examine himself and the worth of a life half lived. told from the prince's perspective, i'm reminded of the description given of the princes bride "fighting, torture, revenge, chases, escapes, true love, miracles..." there is a bit of everything that comes together in the end.

the story didn't just end right at the climax, but actually followed through on some of the repercussions of choices made. rather than leaving practical consequences to the reader's imagination, the author showed things aren't always roses right away and showed the character's responses to opposition. instead of an unrealistic all-ends-tied-up ending, there was enough of a follow through to show that new problems will arise in the solving of current issues. i really enjoyed this book with its very human characters. there are two sequels which i plan on reading once the library picks them up.

RIP problem children

2011-04-11T22:24:00.002-08:00

several projects have been in and out of hibernation for longer than i like to admit. the last month i grabbed the bull by the horns and evaluated each of them, attempted solutions and made a final decision. sadly, many of them jumped in the frog pond.

sunshine socks

after several attempts at making a heel big enough for my feet that didn't stretch the cables beyond recognition, i reported success. that was what the knitting trolls were waiting for. the foot finally fit perfectly - and the leg is way too short. by inches, plural. more than 3.

here compared with a sock in the same yarn, a sock that i tug on all day because it's just a little too short. that pair had an accidental trip through the washer and dryer that i blamed for the shortage. turns out shibui doesn't have the most generous yardage. and it was on the way to being one of my favoritest sock yarns.

sigh.

the sunshine yarn will eventually grow up to be a very plain pair of socks, knit toe up to maximize every inch. and some day when the sting has faded, i'll dig in the stash for some other sock yarn with more yardage for that cabled pattern. because, unbelievably, i still like both of them. they just weren't meant to be together.

gryphon socks

these socks have also gone the way of the dodo. the pattern has an intriguing construction - and a nipple pucker on the heel.

the linen stitch on the sole uses more yarn than a stockinette sole, and despite buying the recommended yarn, there's not much yardage left for the leg......after several incarnations in which the heel never fit quite right, i still got a very short sock. this yarn is in the same boat as the sunshine yarn. it will grow up into a very plain, toe up sock, hopefully with a decent leg length. the pattern will be abandoned to the four winds to survive on its own.

tahoe sweater

this sweater was a fast knit, with a painfully slow finishing process. in the year (exactly! how did i do that?) since completion, i've worn it about 5 times around the house and that's it. it suffers from pattern and user issues, despite its innocent look.

the pattern has a loose and drapey gauge, with swingy sleeves. i measured the schematic against a cotton shirt of the same style, that i like and wear often. lesson: what works in cotton does not necessarily work in yarn. those sleeves were soooo annoying, and got folded over about 4 inches the few times i wore the sweater. i worked the button bands a few times to get the stitches evenly distributed. laying flat, they look fine but once on they pull up like an upside down V. while i like the lilac color of the yarn, it turns out to be a bit hard to match with shirts and would be happier as a pullover.

the yarn itself (elann incense) is wonderful and cozy to wear. it even tolerated ripping better than i expected. due to the gauge, the yardage is less than standard for pullovers in my size. enter the fall edition of interweave knits and the cover sweater, a brioche rib pullover in the exact same colors and matching yardage. once the yarn (and my ego) have rested for a few months, i should have a pullover to show off.

chuck, of course, thinks i'm crazy for ripping anything out, and even more for demolishing a completed sweater. it was a wonderful feeling to accept that those projects weren't working and stop them from smirking at me from the workbasket. now i have yarn for three new projects, free of charge. hopefully ~~they~~ we will be happier in their next incarnations.

uglies pretties and specials by scott westerfeld

2011-04-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

uglies

uglies starts off in an interesting post-apocalyptic setting. the explanation of the "past" is a bit self-consciously simplistic, more suited to an elementary audience than a teen one. the story line is fairly fast-paced, although several parts are easily guessed ahead of time. as i said in the review for the grimm legacy, one of the main plot devices is poor communication. that really gets old by the end of the book. normal adolescent problems of coming of age, thinking for oneself, understanding and rebelling against authority provide more conflict and tension, which mostly overcomes the poor communication issue. uglies was still an engaging, fast read overall.

pretties

the follow up to uglies seems a bit more mature, although there's some rinse and repeat with a very similar story line. everything was laid on thicker than the first book - the main character feels responsible to save EVERYBODY she comes in contact with. the main character is innovative and brave, but keeps getting her mind physically rewired and i've started to feel some sympathy for her -i suspect she will never be normal and happy. despite basing conflicts on civilization vs. nature, scott westerfeld doesn't really know what to do with his pretties outside the city. the ending was disappointing, and very reminiscent of hollywood's inability to deal with a happy couple. i suppose pretties was still fast and engaging. my disgust didn't surface strongly until the last page. there's only one book left in the trilogy - i will probably read it, but i won't like it :)

specials (warning: minor spoiler)

by the end of this book, all the underlying themes were impossible to explain away as accidental. there's a strong female character, manipulated by everyone, and guilt ridden. she feels responsible for other people's choices - her best friend accuses her of thinking she's the center of universe. and she must, because everything is her fault. some things are, most are not, as other people chose how to act and react on their own. there is some maturing over the 3 books yet the ending is still characterized by crappy communication. it ends with a sort of 'let's not talk to the people about how they're changing and positive choices they could make, let's go hide in the woods and attack them if they do something i don't like' scene. all i could think was oh, brother. that sure is the way to change the world.

summary

i doubt that i will reread any of these books. i read more to see what quirks would pop up in the futuristic setting than because i cared about the characters. unfortunately, most of the devices used by the author to keep the story going were very irritating, but i suppose it could get a good discussion going on how not to solve problems. the trilogy was at least interesting when it couldn't be excellent.

i am number four

2011-04-08T13:27:00.002-08:00

a few weeks ago during spring break, chuck and i took advantage of an afternoon off for a date. spring break is early here, and grossly misnamed as it's about 2 months before proper alaskan springtime. chuck ended up training for his summer job most of the week rather than being free as we hoped, so the afternoon off was appreciated.

for our date, we ignored the checkbook and went to the movies to see i am number four. it was a good film, not as underdeveloped as many films aimed at teens. there was an obligatory teen drinking party scene, luckily brief. those scenes make me wonder about my serious lack of social interaction in high school. do teens really drink that much? when discussing the film afterward, there were several points we were curious about that were unexplained, but i prefer the mystery to lame explanations. apparently, the movie is based on a book which i will look up to see how they compare. book explanations don't always translate well to visual mediums. the movie has potential for a good story, which i'm hoping to find in the book. the storyline was decent, with action scenes, some mystery, and some love. the ending was complete in itself but is open for sequels. good entertainment for an afternoon, although i'm not sure it passes the test of ending up on my shelf. i'm more interested in finding the book than watching the movie again.

also noticed on our way out that hoodwinked has a sequel coming out soon! hopefully it will be just as fun as the first movie......

my favorite peanut butter

2011-04-07T17:17:00.000-08:00

when i was a kid, we got foodstamps and welfare peanut butter. the peanut butter was solid stuff that split into chunks and refused to spread smoothly on bread. if it wasn't spread just so, it would tear holes in our whole wheat bread (note: it was not the wimpy wonder bread). it was The Most Awesome Stuff. In. The. World. it tasted like pure peanuts, the inside of a reese's peanut butter cup. my whole life i've wished i could somehow finagle just one more bucket of that peanut butter. even the natural PB in the store isn't quite right.

in my homemade experiments i've come across recipes for making your own peanut butter. some of them call for just peanuts, some add a bit of oil, others a bit of honey. months ago i tried one and wasn't quite satisfied with the results. then one day, going through the cupboards, i grabbed an open can of roasted peanuts and thought 'what the heck.' i pulled out the food processor, determined to grind those peanuts as long as necessary to get real peanut butter.

5 minutes later i was done.

it splits off in chunks. it didn't rip holes in the toast i tested it on, but it does taste very close to that welfare peanut butter of my dreams. guess i don't have to get on government aid to have perfect peanut butter.

how to make your own welfare peanut butter:

grab some peanuts. throw them in the food processor and turn it on. the nuts get ground up, then form a lump. it's not done yet. keep it going and the natural peanut oil will release and the lump smooths out into peanut butter. test your peanut butter on some toast or an old-fashioned PBJ sandwich. close your eyes and enjoy.

the story of the scrolls by geza vermes

2011-02-27T16:02:00.002-09:00

i've always been interested in the dead sea scrolls, as an archaeologist and a christian. although people would talk about the scrolls in very general terms, i never heard any specifics mentioned about their contents, or any books discussing them. almost 2 months ago chuck and i signed up for a new testament class (which we have since dropped - the teacher was the type who assigns reading and then repeats the reading without adding any depth or perspective). the class did remind me of my interest in the scrolls, which was good timing as it turns out. besides books with translations of the scrolls, the library had a book released last spring, the story of the scrolls, that gives an overview of the discovery of the scrolls, their context and contents, plus the scholarly work done up to the present.

vermes' review of the translation work and publication makes it clear why i've never heard specifics: very little was published until the late 90s. archaeological work was done at qumran where the majority of the scrolls were found, and that's even more embarrassing as nothing has been published in the 20 years since the work ended. artifacts have even gone missing. not very professional, as a major part of archaeology is preserving what we find and publishing the information for the public. it's a shame that sharing such an exciting find has taken over 50 years. but it does mean that there are books for me to read, now that i've come back around to the topic.

despite the academic presentation and dense language, i found the story of the scrolls an interesting read. i'm glad i read it before taking on any translations of the scrolls - now i have more context to understand them. some of the scrolls are copies of biblical texts but many deal with community rules and non-biblical topics. the scrolls fall in the time period between the old and new testaments, and vermes explains the historical background and religious groups present for that time period. he seems to present theories objectively, pointing out pros and cons of each. the book was very thorough and a great introduction to the dead sea scrolls as it not only introduces the scrolls themselves put places them, and the people who kept them, in the historic and cultural landscape. i'd definitely recommend it if you're interested in the dead sea scrolls.

next up in my serious reading queue is the complete dead sea scrolls in english by the same author, to be followed by josephus' history of the same time period. that ought to take the rest of the year. good thing i can read more than one book at a time......

hey there, little red riding hood......

2011-02-26T13:57:00.026-09:00

somehow my movie and book queues synced this week, with little red riding hood re-tellings. both were referred by sur la lune.

hoodwinked (2005)

hoodwinked starts with the end of the story as we know it, then rewinds to tell the story from each character's view. the movie is funny, light-hearted, and unconventional, with many humorous references to well-known movies and stories. i'm sure i didn't even catch all the references. it's a bit like a disney film, in that it has music, but (and i never say this) i actually like the songs. chuck even liked it, and he's skeptical of animated faery tale movies. i want this one on our dvd shelf.

sisters red by jackson pearce

sisters red starts at the end of the story as we know it too, oddly enough. instead of one girl, there are two sisters, and pearce explores how they live after the wolf eats grandma. there's new werewolf culture, a woodsman legacy, and the struggle of close siblings to grow up and apart without losing each other. this is a good YA book. the back of the book had a review for pearce's re-telling of hansel and gretel, also with an extra sibling. looks interesting......

chuck ribs and sunshine

2011-02-25T17:32:00.000-09:00

i took a break from my complicated, ill-fitting socks and knit some plain old ribbed socks for chuck. they're a simple 3x2 ribbing, with a short row heel. i have to recommend opal for its yardage - it keeps going and going. when i asked chuck how long he wanted the legs, he replied 'as long as you can make them.' groan. the total length is 12 in/30.5 cm from the bottom of the heel and go 2/3 of the way to his knees.

they seemed to fit well, although i noticed after our photo shoot that the heels look a bit loose. there's no way i'm redoing those long legs though. chuck was all smiles once they were on his feet and didn't want to take them off. he sure knows how to make a girl want to knit him more socks.

i recalculated one of my problem socks, the sunshine socks, measuring both stockinette gauge and cable gauge. the first sock is just past the heel as of sunday and really truly fits well. at last.

they will progress more quickly now that they are the main socks on the needles. i love the pattern and the yarn, it's a relief to finally get the fit right.

another work in progress, designed to stave off sweater knitting pangs, is the veil of isis shawl. it's a free ravelry download from bad cat designs, simple with elegant results. after a rough start with picking a gauge (the pattern doesn't specify any gauge) and misreading the chart, the pattern has grown on me and i only look at the chart for transitions. it started out on 4 dpns and grew onto 8,

then transitioned right onto a 40" circular needle, where it will progress through the Amorphous Blob stage before growing up into a lovely square shawl. i've no idea how large it will end up, i'm going to see how far a one pound cone of laceweight takes me.

grimm legacy, quatrain and neverwhere

2011-02-24T09:17:00.000-09:00

posting reviews of books sure makes it seem like i'm reading more than i thought! i just hope they're interesting to the other bookworms out there.....

the grimm legacy by polly shulman

this book has a library i'd love to work in. the setting is urban fantasy and as a young adult book, it was engaging and quick to read. i liked it, but there was something lacking. this fell between uglies and pretties by scott westerfeld, which i'll review after i've read the last book of the trilogy. they were all decent books, but read so close together impressed me with the same flaw.

harry potter caused an explosion of YA sci-fi/fantasy, with positive and negative results. there's fascinating new worlds, retellings and twists on traditional tales. for me, the main difference between adult and YA novels has been the age of the main characters. the dilemmas should be somewhat adapted to the character's age, but more to their life situation. either way, adult and YA novels should have a feeling of reality and depth that brings me back for a second reading. some of the recent YA books, including the ones above, lack that sense of reality and depth. there's a little too frequent use of hollywood's favorite plot twist - no clear and honest communication rather than true moral dilemmas. it's a bit too easy to guess what's coming next. really, it's almost like there's not much effort to write a real story. the fantasy bit is the setting, the background. how the characters solve their problems is what grabs our attention and makes a story relevant for re-reading. communication issues are boring, just stop being a coward and talk - not telling your friend something should not be the main problem the book solves. the newer YA books have interesting worlds and are fast reads, but CS lewis and madeleine l'engle still have 'em beat.

what do you think? any opinions on the new trends in YA books?

quatrain by sharon shinn

this book is a collection of four short stories/novellas, each set in a different world previously published by the author. i grabbed it for the first story, set in the world of samaria and the archangel series. it was a decent story, set in the same time period as archangel. the other stories were in worlds i hadn't read yet. the second story, blood, was my favorite. it's got very different cultures and customs clashing in the background of a young man's personal quest. this story was most successful at drawing the world and its conflicts in a short space. the next story, gold, was very fluffy - an immature princess and her unconvincing story. the last story was another good one. in a world again brought to life with few words, it tells of an outcast with a mystery to solve. the second and fourth stories will have me looking for other books about those worlds.

neverwhere by neil gaiman

i am a fan of gaiman, his books have good plots, good twists, and incorporates fantasy and mythological elements in new ways. neverwhere is one of my favorites, which i am re-reading after watching the 6 episode tv series. if you've read the book and liked it, it's a decent enough show. it's a bit odd, just like the book. chuck thought it seemed hokey and unrealistic - like it couldn't really happen. the book was more convincing but the series is not bad if you're at the bottom of your netflix queue and waiting for the new doctor who season to start.

shoveling the deck poem

2011-02-17T13:04:00.001-09:00

the brilliant colors of spring's promises
bidding gentle farewell in autumn
lay crumbling and broken,
frozen and forgotten
beneath the bitter cold of winter

arctic gold round my neck

2011-02-15T15:52:00.000-09:00

arctic gold aka qiviut or muskox fiber, spun up into fine, very soft and very warm yarn. most qiviut is fingering weight yarn yet can be knit into lace and retain its warmth. when i first moved to alaska it cost $70 for a 50g skein. these days it goes for $90 as more people (and tourists) have learned about it and demand has gone up. a couple years ago i scored a reduced price skein at our local group's destash. it's actually a 50/50 blend of silk and qiviut that costs less than pure qiviut. if you know how expensive silk is, that might put it into perspective.

anyway, the silk adds drape, sheen and, well, silkiness to the qiviut. it felt wonderful to knit with and literally kept my fingers warm while i was knitting! small projects are common with qiviut, to make use of every last inch of yarn. i went with a neckwarmer as scarves have never been a hit with me. my neck does get cold, of course, so hopefully this neckwarmer will do the job.

the pattern uses a sideways version of feather and fan, which we all know i'm a sucker for. it's a free pattern meant for qiviut, although a different brand with more yardage than what i had. i made some adjustments to the pattern to accommodate the difference in yardage, which turned out to be unnecessary, and so i can tell you on good authority that qiviut/silk frogs very well and can be reused with no problems. in the end, i followed the pattern as written (gasp!) with fewer repeats and ended with just enough yarn to weave in my ends.

the feather and fan was fun to knit, no surprise there. the neckwarmer pools into a cuddle of silky warmth on my neck. since the folds hide the pattern, and the inside shows, i may end up wearing it inside out, just to see if anyone notices.

i've worn it indoors and outdoors a few times, but have yet to try the -20F/-30C half hour walk test. due to the drape, it doesn't really cover my whole neck and it won't stay hooked over my nose, so i don't know if it will work the whole winter. it definitely can be worn in a chilly house or for extra coziness. i'm glad to finally put the qiviut to use. now it won't stare at me from the shelf and my neck will be warmer!

the sun is coming back!

2011-02-03T22:21:00.000-09:00

maybe only at a rate of 6 minutes a day, but that's enough. by mid-march we'll have daylight until 8pm, which is almost the summer max for the lower 48. the snow will still be here, which makes for cold comfort (pun unavoidable). i'll take it anyway.

quick reads

2011-01-19T10:15:00.000-09:00

gathering blue by lois lowry

the story and setting were intriguing and quickly pulled me through the pages. gathering blue is set in a very small scale futuristic society, which after war and upheaval, has developed very strict customs. there are some children with extraordinary talents that could change the (almost entirely) negative way of life. the story builds up anticipation for great changes but the conclusion is anticlimactic. the main character was not as quick on the uptake as i expected - she seems observant and intelligent, yet doesn't make some very obvious logical connections. instead her younger sidekick is the one who draws conclusions and acts. the closing scene showing the main character poised for action is not quite believable, as she didn't seem to have developed the brains and gumption for it. the book is perhaps too obviously written as a "teaching" book, focusing more on drawing the conflict between opposing ideas and leaving the discussion and resolution for the classroom. oh well. it was an ok read overall.

and, on a side note, are there any futuristic/rewritten history tales where the men are reduced to breeding and manly chores, and allowed no education or opinions? the stereotype of women being held back gets a bit old sometimes.

serenity: the shepherd's tale by zack and joss whedon

lots of anticipation was built into this graphic novel: at last the super secret background of shepherd book (from the firefly series) was to be revealed. the events go steadily back in time, illuminating the journey of book's life as if going through a dying man's memories. it was an interesting read, and an intriguing method of exposition, as the story jumped between scenes, often connected by a single word. the stream of memories revealed different sides of book's character and past. enough was revealed to answer the questions raised in the show, without too much explanation, and satisfied my curiosity. the simple telling fills out book's character as we already know him from the series. and hey, there was a jayne scene in there!

the particular sadness of lemon cake by aimee bender

this book came to my attention through a summer post on sur la lune, which i only read recently. luckily, there was no waiting list and i nabbed it from the library right away. i sat down to read for 15 minutes and ended up reading through the whole book in an afternoon. the prose is well-written and flows easily. the lack of punctuation in the conversations made them seem more like conversations, no commas or quotation marks for your eyes to hang up on.

overtly, the book's premise is the main character's ability to taste someone's emotions in the food they cook. what was truly fascinating was not the details of tasting someone else's unconscious emotions but examining flawed family relationships and different ways we keep people at a distance. the main character, rose, discovers her ability as she's turning 9 and the sudden knowledge of the hidden sides of others becomes a barrier for rose. rose's family is already emotionally distant and rose learns to hide from the negative and surprising emotions in food and rarely interacts with people directly. very slowly, events conspire to help rose realize there's more to people than the emotions she finds in their food.

rather like real life, there is no neat and tidy solution to everything, but rose begins to reach out to others and develop her own stunted emotions. food remains an intermediary, however, which is sort of disturbing. the lack of a clear conclusion was a bit annoying, too much like everyday life with its unfinished ends. leaving it open allows room for the imagination to continue where rose left off though, and consider possibilities for more open relationships with people without the need for any kind of intermediary. rose's talent/curse can be compared to experiences we all have growing up that can turn into walls between us and others, and her coming to terms with her experiences makes me wonder how far i've come in the same process. i will probably read this book again, which definitely counts as a thumbs up.

2010 in review

2011-01-10T14:54:00.002-09:00

looking back, i am impressed with myself. i thought i only posted once last year, but there's 3 whole posts up! 2010 was similar to 2009 in many ways, which is why we have a huge round up post rather than shorter, more regular posts. so, the last year in review, if not in chronological order:

in the spring, chuck changed jobs, then got fired, and now drives a school bus. that was a whole mixed bag. he was looking for less work stress, which he now has. he's also been wanting to get out of banking, which he has. the initial job switch let us use part of chuck's retirement to pay off a huge debt (with one tiny click. i savored that moment). we're now down to almost a third of the debt chuck had when we got married. not having that $900 monthly payment and several small miracles helped us through the 3 months of unemployment before the bus job and makes it easier to live on the lower income.

archy work was very short this year, a measly 3 months. i worked in delta again, with all the fun side effects of living in two places that i noted last year. the work and crew were great though. site monitering is where it's at. you hike out to a known site, relocate surface artifacts, make sure the military hasn't blown a hole in anything, take some pictures and notes, then repeat. i loved it. still wish there was a good option for winter archaeological work up here........

about the same time chuck started driving buses, i started working part time at a yarn store. work has tapered off, so i ought to look for something else, but it's been tons of fun helping people with their knitting and picking out yarn.

i played more with homemade stuff. we haven't really bought bread since 09, and i've made my own tortillas and english muffins besides sandwich, french and flat breads. our garden gave us lots of potatoes that we're still eating, along with squash. everything else we ate as it ripened. i wish we could grow enough tomatoes to put up. we gathered blueberries, most of which we froze, and lingon (lowbush cranberries), that were turned into cranberry sauce. i also made spruce tip jelly, which has an interesting spicy sweet flavor. next year i want to try rose petal jelly from all the prickly rose in the yard. Homemade mustard and barbecue sauce are in the fridge, along with homegrown (homelaid?) eggs, some of them blue. chuck raised broiler chickens again, so we haven't bought chicken for 2 years. he also raised a turkey that grew to 25 pounds and barely fit in our tiny oven on thanksgiving, and we have 6 laying hens. they average 4-5 eggs daily, more than we can eat, so we trade them for moose and caribou meat. i even made laundry detergent too! seems we buy less and less at the store. mostly i try stuff out for fun, and because i like knowing how to make my food and what's in it and changing things to suit my taste. none of it took very much time (the jelly was a small batch) and costs very little. i made soft cheese, but for the cost of milk vs the lower cost of cheese and considering the ratio of milk to finished cheese......we will keep buying cheese.

we bought season tickets for UAF hockey while we had money in the summer, and now the games are like free dates.

i apparently knit a storm through the year, ending up with more large projects (shawls and sweaters) than before. i also experimented with some new things, knitting with wire and making small toys.
that doesn't count anything started but not finished of course. i knit more for myself - it makes no sense for me to not have enough socks when i'm the one knitting them. out of 25 finished projects, 11 were for myself, almost half and a definite improvement. mostly i knit from stash, since yarn was not really in our budget this year. sweaters were probably the most satisfying projects while socks were not my friend all. year. long. fitting issues. hopefully to be fixed in 2011.

the fairbanks knitting group just gets more awesome with time. they're a great mix of people with very different tastes and backgrounds and opinions, yet mostly we manage to encourage each other and have intriguing conversations. if we moved, they would be the people i missed.

we got lots of yardwork done while we were unemployed together. the raised flower beds i built in 07 have been slowly but steadily eroding and we had started building boxes for them in the spring. we finished those and planted rhubarb, a red currant plant, daffodils, tulips and crocus. ever since living in sweden i've wanted crocus of my own to peep out from the melting snow. we even cleaned out the prickly rose from the raspberry bushes and raked leaves! not all of them, but more than normal. i almost like our yard now.

my wisdom teeth were ~~pulled~~ dug out in the spring. i was a bit worried, from the horror stories told to my body's high tolerance for medication to getting an IV and being put under for the first time ever. my mouth felt crowded though, and the new teeth were trying to push aside other teeth. so it had to be done, and in the end? not so bad. i almost wouldn't mind doing it again. the IV took a couple tries and hurt more than anything else. the dentist had to give me two hits of anesthesia to knock me out and as i came to, he clearly asked is she waking up already? that didn't make me feel too good, but they were almost done. there was a bit of swelling, and i got a cool ice pack band to wrap around my head. made me feel like i was in an old time war movie.
i took the (huge) aspirin they gave me and nothing else and was back to work on monday without missing a day since the surgery was on friday, my day off. the pains from crowded teeth were gone and i was happy. although i'd've been happier if i could have kept the teeth for souvenirs..........

we signed up for the rosetta stone online through the military. i'm reviewing spanish, and filling in some everyday words missing from my vocabulary, while chuck is learning swedish. i love hearing him learn, it's more exciting for me than him i think. he's improved in every lesson and i can't wait till his vocabulary is large enough to have conversations.

i read lots too, although i have no idea where i fit it and the knitting in. according to goodreads, i read 45 books this year. that's almost one a week, not too bad. some really good ones were: Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by patricia wrede and caroline stevermer, a lighthearted, funny fantasy with sequels to follow. stieg larsson's girl who.... series was a fascinating mix of mystery, journalism, crime solving, and political corruption set in sweden. they were gripping reads, and had fairly accurate descriptions of swedes. the only downside was the sexual crimes against women, but i suppose that was the point. the latest additions to the vlad taltos series, jhegaala and dzur, by steve brust added more depth to vlad's character. despite being quick reads, they kept me thinking long after reading. in defense of food by michael pollan made an interesting analysis of our current food culture and how traditional food culture has been manipulated for commerce. an extremely well-written and highly creepy fitcher's brides by gregory frost i would recommend for the writing and morals but won't re-read. i'd like to sleep at night, thank you very much. another non-fiction book i really enjoyed was the paradox of choice by barry schwartz. he delves into the unconscious and conscious factors that go into all our choices, big and small. the book was not as dry as i anticipated and points out a need for us to limit our own options to make effective choices. an interesting concept.

annoyingly less good were: water for elephants by sara gruen, which a few of us in the knitting group read. the story just seemed to descend into melodrama and ended in an unlikely series of events. it started well, but i felt cheated at the end. name of the rose by umberto eco has sat on my shelves unread since high school. now it can sit on someone else's shelves. the long involved story of medieval religious heresies and dissidents is mixed with murders at an abbey. when revealed, the motive for the murders seems absurd and superficial. cheated again. wuthering heights by emily bronte confirms that british female romance writers are not for me. a bunch of whiny noble people make bad choices which have bad consequences and i think i'm supposed to feel sorry for them. um, nope. sorry. think i'll avoid the bronte's along with austen from now on.

the week of thanksgiving it rained. this just doesn't happen in interior alaska. the warm weather made the foot or so of snow on the roof slide off, which normally happens in april. the fall compacted it all and made normal shoveling impossible. when it started coming off the deck in solid square chunks, what could i do but make a wall? crenelations and archer slits possibly to be added later.

since summer, chuck has been working on painting the kitchen cupboards (the ones he took the doors off the summer before). the kitchen has slowly transformed from a dark green and gunky yellow 70s combo

to a much brighter white (inside), blue, and yellow.

the colors remind me of sweden and make the kitchen a thousand times brighter. i love it. the cupboard doors have been materializing the last couple weeks, and after a year and a half without doors, it feels odd being unable to just reach in and grab what i want.

we watched more than a few movies in 2010, but not many made it to our favorites list. we really enjoyed blind side, ondine and the A team remake. oddly enough, tv on dvd was much more popular with us (we don't ever watch any tv shows on tv). a random series of events introduced us to the 2005 season of doctor who. september and october were a haze of the 5 recent seasons. it's a crazy, unpredictable, upbeat, funny british sci-fi space/time travel show and if you haven't seen it, do. you never know what will happen and yet only a few times is the story so outlandish that it seems impossible. we're waiting anxiously for next season to start, and have infected the grandkids with the addiction. we finished watching the dollhouse show, joss whedon is my hero for interesting tv. it's a bummer his shows have such short runs.

we got a couple camping trips in. we took the bratlings camping in denali in the spring and hiked with them all day with no complaints from grownups or kids.

chuck kidnapped me to paxson lake for a relaxing weekend in the summer, complete with canoeing and a beautiful sunset.

we also finally hiked angel rocks together. we've been saying we'd do that for years. the trail starts out on the valley floor and climbs to the ridge top

where granite tors are eroding into cool formations and caves.
which of course we had to explore a bit, crawling into that hole behind us that opens into some small caves, then out the other side.

on the winter solstice, we saw the total lunar eclipse. apparently the last time one happened on the solstice was in the 1600s. the moon wasn't totally blacked out but looked shadowed, like seeing it through a black curtain. very cool phenomenon, but we couldn't get a photo that didn't look like a black sky.

after the very long break i've had in blogging, i have a clearer idea how i want to blog, a way to balance my content. several blogs i read manage to have good, varied content in short posts and i think i have learned from their good example. i suppose this next year will be the test. my iphone was no replacement for the internet and so there are still podcasts and blogs being caught up on.

all in all, 2010 was a good year. i never got tired of being home with my husband. i'm grateful for my friends, talking to family over holidays, and all the little miracles that keep me going every day. i'm thankful i can do so many things that i enjoy and are meaningful to me, which luckily tend not to be very expensive. reading my summing up post on 2009, i must have got something right in the balance department this year. the year was equally disruptive, busy, and i still worked out of town yet i feel as if i did more in most areas of life and feel more peaceful and happy looking back. i have to keep doing that.

flashback: hedgerow jacket

2010-01-29T13:49:00.000-09:00

in 2007, chuck and i surprised his parents by showing up on their doorstep the day before thanksgiving. we were there about a week, and of course i knit while we relaxed and talked. my mother in law surprised me (almost as much as we had surprised them, i think) by asking me to make her a sweater. not a hat, or a scarf, but a sweater. i was too shocked and impressed with her daring to say no. she picked out a pattern (hedgerow coat) for a long cardigan and a charcoal color (we couldn't have done that without ravelry) and i warned her it would be a long time coming since my queue was a bit overfull.

in december of 08, yarn was bought and swatched. i started with the sleeves, 2 at a time, because i hate finishing the main part of a sweater and thinking, oh, there's only 2 little sleeves left - which then take forever to finish. the sleeves came along great, sharing time with some other projects, and were done by springtime. at least that's when i took a picture of them, although they look as if they'd been folded a while already.knowing how little i enjoy seaming, i knit the fronts and back as one piece to the armholes. then it was easy as pie to bind off the shoulders together and sew in the sleeves. the shawl collar didn't give me any problems, and i liked that the cables were repeated in the collar.
i found some engraved wood buttons that seemed to complement the sweater and brighten it up a bit.honestly, by the time i was done i was a bit jealous, and thought about keeping it for myself. that it was in my size didn't make it any easier.but i dutifully sent it off, along with some wool wash. chuck kept reassuring me that his mom would love it, to which i always replied, "she'd better," in a growly sort of voice. not having the person around to double-check fit worries me, so i was relieved when the sweater arrived and it fit perfectly! she sounded very pleased and happy, and since she's the sort of woman to speak her mind, i believe her even without photographic evidence.

and when chuck's sister said, "now you can knit me a sweater", i said, "i can teach you to knit."

a flower and some ugly socks

2010-01-22T15:23:00.001-09:00

thank you all for the comments - i'm glad you kept me in your feed readers. 2009 was a busy year, just a lot happening, and while i don't think of it as a bad year, i don't think it was a favorite. although the hard bits tend to fall out of memory with time, so maybe i'll just remember it as the year my brother graduated college, i got to know my stepson better, and my frog nephew was born.

one thing i forgot to put in my bullet post was this horrible illness i battled the whole time i worked in delta, for six long months: internet deprivation. oh, it was scary. i couldn't check emails, my feed reader was so full it deleted blog posts unread, and of course, writing my own blog posts was well-nigh impossible. bills did manage to get paid on the weekends, but that was about it. since i stopped working i've been going through a recovery program and am almost back to full internet working speed. i'm only a week behind on reading blogs, so i may even start commenting again! emails will be written! (och du står först på listan Lasse!) it's a beautiful thing.

and most importantly (because there's a good chance of working in delta again this coming summer) i've got something on hand to cure any internet deprivation that may pop up: an iphone. it replaced a phone that was 4 years old and i'm loving it. easy to use and more intuitive than the other touch screens i looked at (the full keyboards didn't appeal to me). my very favoritest thing though, was discovering i could set the whole system to swedish. talk about options. for now, i'll stick to blogging from the computer, but having a backup option feels great.

being home has given me more time to focus on knitting projects, and i'm actually making progress. 2009 did not see the completion of very much, maybe because i worked on a couple sweaters but mostly because there just wasn't that much time for knitting. it feels great to see something grow in weeks rather than months. one project i've been focusing on is a doily pattern turned blanket, from the second book of modern lace knitting. it's called daffodil, and i couldn't resist knitting it in yellow.
the first rows flew by (it's knit from the center out) with all the changes. watching the pattern develop really keeps me knitting, i want to see the next bit take shape. now i'm less than 20 rows from finishing, and each round takes almost an hour. ugh. it's much harder to see progress, but i'm plugging along. the daffodil motif is actually visible now.luckily, the other project i'd been focused on got finished last week! there's almost nothing like the exhilaration of completing a project - except maybe picking what to start next. this project was a pair of socks for chuck. amazingly, i started them way back in december of 2008. i switch off sock projects to keep myself engaged and my gauge constant (if i knit 2 socks in a row, the second is always slightly larger for some reason). the first sock was finished sometime in the spring, i think. then i knit a sock for myself and finally got around to starting the second sock in december - almost a year after starting the first one.the stitch pattern is a herringbone stitch from one of the walker treasuries, done more for my sake than chuck's. he likes his socks pretty plain but i wanted something to make them interesting to knit. the herringbone worked well with the color changes. speaking of color, chuck picked out the yarn (online supersocke) and he's very satisfied with the socks. however, the overall brown tweediness of the yarn with the black and grey stripes is about the ugliest combination i've ever seen, which prompted me to dub them ugly socks. luckily chuck isn't offended by that, and was just happy to see them finished.in the meantime, some malabrigo that i was gifted in my local knitting group's christmas swap was begging to be made into a hat...............

a look back at 2009

2010-01-08T15:25:00.003-09:00

i've never done one of those "year in review" posts before.....but seeing as i didn't post all year it's the best way to sum up and move on. the last time i blogged i was trying to catch up, and that didn't get very far. unfortunately, i'm the sort that has to catch up at least minimally, or i always have the nagging sense that i forgot something. so, here goes.

the first few months of 2009 are a blur. work sucked and i sort of zoned out to make it bearable. this was a bad thing - apparently once you start zoning out, it's hard to stop.

in march, i got laid off. this was ok by me. my superiors were never planning work for me and the atmosphere of uncertainty was slowly driving me mad (as was the boredom, see zoning out). how mad, i didn't quite realize till i was laid off and felt like a huge burden lifted.

in may, my brother graduated college and we got to travel to massachusetts to see it. he's a single dad with 2 daughters and he's worked while studying for a lot of years. my nieces' were so happy for him, and i was so proud of him for persevering, it still chokes me up a bit.

while in massachusetts, i got to attend my first ever wool and sheep fair-festival-deal. lots of wool, spun and unspun, all of which i was too overwhelemed to take home with me. my mom tried out a spinning wheel and made a pretty good show of almost making yarn for the first time in her life. even chuck had fun. we also made it to webs' tent sale, where i was not as disciplined and made off with several kinds of laceweight.

also in march, i had a wisdom tooth erupt and got it pulled. fairly painlessly, in fact. it had been sticking into my cheek for 3 days before i could get to the dentist and having it gone hurt way less than its presence. there's still 3 left though......

for six months, starting in june, i worked in delta junction. it's a town just over an hour south of north pole. work itself was much better. living away from home, and only coming home on the weekends to unpack, do laundry, repack and leave again sucked.

shortly after starting work, i said "whatever" to the field supervisor. this got me relegated to the lab, which while better than being fired, still left me feeling imprisoned and very twitchy. luckily it only took a month to catch up to the artifacts pouring in from the field, and i was able to work outside again. most of the time.

my stepson moved in with us in july. he was arrested on father's day (while with his kids - o, the irony!) and my husband became his third party supervision while he's on bail. third party supervision is glorified babysitting at it's finest. glued to the hip is a good way to describe it. luckily, he was granted house arrest when he couldn't work anymore (in november) and me and chuck could go on dates again. it was wonderful. trips to the grocery store were exciting.

our finances are shot. there was bail and living/traveling expenses while i worked in delta. then there was our house in delta that wouldn't sell when the renter moved out in may - 2 mortgages, anyone? and repainting the whole interior before a new renter moved in.

i worked in delta right up to thanksgiving. that was mostly good. it was best after the field supervisor left at the end of the summer. lab work is not my cup of tea, but it was bearable. we had some good times, discovered some good music (great big sea, dropkick murphys, KT tunstall) thanks to online radio.

thanksgiving was good. we had some good food. i made yeast rolls rather than biscuits for the first time in my life, and they were really good.

then we caught a wicked virus from bratling issac, who doesn't cover his mouth when he coughs. we were sick a week and didn't get to enjoy the thanksgiving leftovers at all. major bummer.

did i mention that the bratlings (chuck's 2 grandchildren, one boy, one girl, 9 and 6 respectively) have been over almost every weekend since their dad came to live with us? i used to think i liked them, but now i'm not sure. too close proximity and all that. makes me glad all over again that i don't have kids.

i signed up for facebook at the urging of some work friends and feel like i interact more with my family that's on there. since we're not the best at calling each other, it's lots of fun.

december was a whirl of cleaning and decorating and baking and getting amped up for christmas. holidays just aren't the same without my huge family, but everything was relaxed and calm and peaceful. just seeing my husband everyday for over a month made everything great. christmas has this special, strange and deep happiness for me, i wish it lasted all year.

we ended the year with the corpse bride, ocean's 11, lots of junk food, the bratlings and some fireworks. we picked some good fireworks this year. the best was a setup of 25 shots that went off like a finale. somehow chuck managed to light them at 12.00 exactly.

just before the end of the year, my brother, jeremiah, and his wife had their first child. he's named after his dad, but with a different middle name which they're calling him by. the best part about him being named for his dad is we can continue all the bullfrog jokes into another generation. they live in guam though, so i keep trying to figure out how i can get over there to see the "little frog" in person.......he looks good in pictures!

which gets us to present day. i'm blissfully unemployed for the moment. there's a lithics analysis course being offered at UAF this semester that i'm working on attending, on the theory it will help me do my job better, perhaps in the winter, even. something that my masters in viking archaeology doesn't quite manage, sadly.

and i'm doing lots of housewifely stuff: cleaning, decluttering, baking, laundry, doing dishes, and cooking. trying to make my house into more of a home. enjoying being home, and realizing how much effort goes into making it a home, making it beautiful and comforting and welcoming. and also realizing that i enjoy making my home pleasant and appreciate it more after being away so long.

balance is a word, an idea, that is often in my thoughts right now, and often is when i'm out of work. a friend asked me yesterday if i had a whole hour to myself, what i would do. i asked if it was a trick question - after all, i decide what i do all day right now as it is. but i always struggle to balance things that must get done (like dishes or laundry), things that would be good to do (like organize the library so we can actually use the room) and things that are important to me (like emailing my friends and spending time with God). somehow the necessary things, the chore-like projects i have around the house, end up on top of my list, while the things that truly matter to me come last. it doesn't make much sense, and it's deeply frustrating. even more so because it's me frustrating myself. i'm not sure what i would do with that one hour. but i'm hoping to learn to balance all the demands i put on myself, to do what my heart says is important yet not neglect the cobwebs.

over the past year, i've thought a lot about blogging, why i do it, how i write, whether a blog ought to be narrowly focused on one tiny aspect of my life, if a post has to have pictures, and whether i'm able to balance blogging with spending time with people in the flesh. not too sure i have good answers to all of those questions, but i do miss blogging. it's sort of a message in a bottle, a shout-out to the whole world to see if anyone thinks i'm worth listening to. sort of like scanning space, hoping to find lifeforms to connect with, that understand our stories and broaden our lives with their stories. i still have messages to send it seems, i can only hope they're relevant.

and that someone is still listening besides the aliens.

mini-parade day 3: irish moss

2008-12-15T14:58:00.000-09:00

(ok, so obviously this is a slow parade. the clowns must have tripped up the ROTC squad or something.)

pattern: irish moss in alice starmore's aran knitting. i redrew the cable charts so they'd scan easier, added selvedge stitches, and left the shoulder stitches live for a 3 needle bindoff with the saddles. otherwise the pattern was straightforward and error free.
in: knit picks wool of the andes, which is holding up well so far. no sagging, a little pilling.
made for chuck, mostly on sundays over the course of 10 months. kind of. i cast on sometime in august 2007, and finished knitting all the bits by may 2008. it could be called the month of sundays sweater, since that ends up being about 40 sundays of knitting. the last bits of it really dragged. suddenly i was sick to death of it (maybe because i wasn't switching between 5 other projects) in a "i can't believe this isn't done yet" kind of way. the last inches of the second sleeve and its saddle were done in a mental frenzy where i kept wishing my hands would knit faster so i could be Done.

i blocked it before seaming (which i don't always), and took it on our MA trip.that was largely futile. seaming is one of those things i like time and quiet to focus on, which was in rather short supply this summer. i tried doing the saddles first as recommended, but they came out not quite right. the pattern doesn't specify the saddle length, and all the stretchy cables in the body made it hard to figure out just how long i needed. so i ended up doing them last, and they fit perfectly.the corners look so square and neat. i realized that this is only my third sweater, which may be enough of a reason for the amazed it-looks-just-like-a-real-sweater glee i have when it all fits together.this sweater was intended for chuck to wear last winter, and finishing it in july was a bit disappointing. i wanted to see him wear it right now right now. as it was, he did wear it the week i finished it, thanks to the chilly, rainy summer. i haven't managed to get a shot of him modeling it yet, but it fits and looks very good on him. hugs are extra cozy when he's wearing it, because i can snuggle up to him and the yarn.

mini-parade day 2: massachusetts in may

2008-12-06T15:38:00.001-09:00

my #5 brother jeremiah graduated college this spring and fulfilled his life-long dream of getting paid to wear camo and sneak around by joining the air force (which i did mention ever so quickly, when it happened). although he's in communications so that might limit his sneaking around sniping opportunities somewhat.

the ceremony was mercifully rather short, with about 20 ROTC graduates taking their oaths.

my mom and dad got to pin the officer bars on jeremiah. after being sworn in and getting their new rank, each graduate could say a few words. many thanked family. my brother simply said "lock and load."

the last bit was the traditional silver dollar salute. the first enlisted person to salute a newly sworn-in officer is given a silver dollar. no one really said why, but it was kind of cool. jeremiah had asked his high school ROTC colonel to swear him in, and his high school ROTC commander gave him his first salute. chuck couldn't resist saluting him after as well - after 22 years in the navy i think that was the best way chuck knew to show jeremiah he respected his choice.

i was very proud of jeremiah for doing something so crazy as joining the air force, simply because that was his dream all these years.
we also, not coincidentally, got to meet his girlfriend. she's the red head in the middle of my family (not my whole family, but it's some of us).

while in massachusetts we went to one of my favoritest places on earth: the windsor jambs at windsor state forest. our family vacations always consisted of camping for a week in july when the factory my dad worked at shut down for inventory. it was probably the cheapest vacation for a family with 8 kids, but we loved it. building fires, hiking, playing in mountain streams, and of course harassing each other. we never liked camping at windsor (the sites are small, close together and very dark) but we'd always drive there to hike the jambs. the offical site i linked to says one may not hike the jambs as dangerous conditions exist. um, oops. we never looked at that website.

the jambs were formed by some stream wearing through bedrock to create an (apparently) 80 foot gorge. there's a trail from the top of the jambs down to the bottom. normally we follow the trail to the bottom1. trail at top of bedrock to right, 2. a waterfall from above, 3. once this waterfall was low enough for me to climb up the middle of it, 4. bottom of the trail where the jambs flatten out

and then hike up through waterfalls, around fallen trees, clinging to rock ledges until we reach the top.as i've gone back over the years, i've wondered what my parents were smoking to let us climb that thing as kids. my dad just shrugged when i asked him. the first time i was maybe 10 with at least one younger brother trailing behind. it probably isn't the safest thing in the world to do (and this last time i realized how long it's been since i did something like that - my confidence isn't what it was, but we still made it), but man is it fun.

we can't ever resist taking tons of pictures. the water, the rocks, and the still sparkling pools (some shallow, some so deep you can't see the bottom) are mesmerizing, and never quite the same twice depending on what storms have blown through and how much meltwater the spring brought. but still we know it like the back of our hands, always looking for our special landmarks.
there's the mermaid's seat , in a pool we always say we'll stop and swim in, but never do,

and nature flipping the bird to the sky.

i love the huge bedrock slabs, slowly eroded down, the falling boulders that shift so slowly over the years

with the blog in mind i even took a shot of our hand and foot holds

i look at that and think: what was i smoking to go trusting my life to that narrow edge of stone? we put our fingers in the cracks and hope the mossy rock will hold as we pull ourselves up, and that our feet won't slip when we have to balance on that edge.

chuck did look as if he thought i was mad when i wanted to climb, but gamely followed me through the jambs. he must have seen the gleam in my eye and known i would have gone with or without him.

after the jambs we went driving around a bit, looking for another elusive waterfall we had vague memories of visiting near the jambs (which turned out to be bashbish falls and nowhere near the jambs), and passing some very small signs that said craft festival. i was entrigued, but lured by the waterfall and mindful of everyone else, i let it go. i sure wish i hadn't and that i'd been reading blogs on vacation. turns out we were driving through west cummington, the home of the MA fiber festival. arg! i could have went to my first fiber festival........

the last highlight of our trip was a jaunt over the border to new york with my dad and brother andy to watch some drag races. sadly, i have no photographic evidence of the awesome cars (or the sunburn we all got there) but it was loads of fun. my dad loves old cars, which has rubbed off on some of us. there was a mini-car show in the parking lot, and seeing those gems along with the pumped up race cars was great. if i still lived in the area, i would be tempted to race my 74 catalina some weekend just for fun. and speed without getting a ticket of course :)

mini-parade: day 1

2008-12-04T21:31:00.000-09:00

to keep things short and sweet, set apart so you'll know when i have (finally) finished reliving the past and moved onto the present, and yet still keep a sense of fun, i've decided to host a parade. a mini-parade, because when parades are too long everyone gets antsy, so this will be more like just a few floats going by (because i don't have the bands to march in between for relief). i don't think it'll go much longer than a week, assuming i post everyday. so not quite a december advent calender. although, (if only you speak swedish) there is a chocolate advent calender over at pickipicki, where you click through a photo to a quick chocolate recipe every day. how cool is that?

without further ado, leading off our parade is a knit shawl that survived mistakes, ripbacks, and running out of yarn at least twice to make its way to my mother's shoulders in may.

the length was exactly where i wanted it, and it took 3 skeins to get there (which the pattern utterly neglected to even hint at). the babyull impressed me so, (soft yet warm and light) that i still daydream of babyull sweaters for myself. it stood up well to ripping back, and there was no visible difference in the 3 dyelots used throughout the shawl. it blocked wonderfully from a lumpto beautiful lace. blocking was easier than i anticipated, all i really had to do was smooth out the shawl and pin out the points (which didn't take nearly as long as i expected). feather and fan is one of my favorite lace patterns. i couldn't resist a closeup of the lace itself. and the faroese shaping is something marvelous to behold. i test wore the shawl and it really does stay in place all by itself. so very very cool. i may have to make myself one.

2008-12-03T09:32:00.002-09:00

the other day someone mentioned stumbleupon in a blog post. being a bit bored (coughatworkcough) i checked it out and started wandering through random websites. it's very good for when you've read all the blog updates and just need a break for a few seconds.

yesterday, it turned up a website where i could get my very own hobbit name. what the heck. it had fields for first and last name, so for fun i did my maiden name first and then my married name. i got this:

Prisca Moss of Lake-By-Downs (which sounded faintly and pleasantly british due to the place name)

and

Prisca Chubb of Deephollow (which sounds rather as if someone on that site knows a bit too much about the state of my waistline since i got married)

chuck laughed a good ten minutes or so over that.

(although i just tried his name, and he's Meriadoc Chubb of Deephollow. so at least we know the last name is his fault. nothing to do with my dress size. now if only i'd known marrying him would turn me into a chubb.......)

i'm not dead yet - honest!

2008-12-02T11:41:00.000-09:00

somehow my life this year was thrown for a loop, and not for any good reason really. but my life balance is definitely off. i feel like i've finally caught up on almost everything after working here and there and traveling this summer. now i'm just trying to stay caught up with dishes and laundry and bills and emails and fun and work, and i wouldn't claim to be very successful at that just yet. the small things are what pile up most (and then take ages to go through), so i try to take care of them as soon as i notice them. that helps. a lot.

my brain has calmed down enough that i'm writing blog posts in my head again (and wouldn't it be so cool to have an internet connection in my head, so i could visualize it all and post it without having to actually sit at a computer and type - but then who would get any sleep with the internet right there? and i can picture conversations with blank eyed people: are you online again while i'm talking to you? no, mom honest.). which means that i'm trying to squeeze that back in too. i've got stories of weddings (well, only one really) and beaches and snow and family and knitting and replacing ghetto house stuff and you know, life. with pictures even! i'm thinking blogging is like those small things: if i just do a little at a time (and maybe try to go on a little less) i'll get posts up more often.

sounds good anyway.

who you gonna call

2008-08-11T09:07:00.002-08:00

we always had a tongue-in-cheek joke back home that had a lot of truth in it:

if you need a cop, don't call 911, call dunkin donuts.

we couldn't resist this photo op on our massachusetts tripthe best (worst?) part was there were actually 3 police cars lined up there, but one drove off in the time it took us to turn around for the picture.

so if you've got dunkin donuts in your area, remember who to call if you need help.

i've been a bad girl

2008-08-09T17:03:00.002-08:00

besides the virtual pile of photos and the stories rolling around my head going back to may that i haven't posted yet, i am behind in the public displays of appreciation department as well.

podcasts are still a strange new world to me, fascinating but wildly overpopulated. discovering them rather behind the curve makes navigating through the hordes of knit podcasts to see what i like tricky, and i haven't dared cross the threshold to other topics, like music or books. especially because i want to be able to listen and quiet me-time for that is awful limited. so i haven't gotten very far, to be honest.

with one exception. the most wonderful podcast in existence (i am convinced, despite it being my first and only) is faery knitting by erin. erin reads and discusses a (public domain) faery tale (with voices and clever asides), then talks about yarn and gardening. brilliant! it's a perfect mix, and so fun to be read a story, discuss the background and underlying messages, then hear about planting and knitting and raising alpacas. and to top it off, she has little contests with book, yarn and gardening prizes.

one of which i won, ever so far back now. a little package with pole bean seeds, a book mark and cool chinese print card were waiting for me on my return from our MA trip. yes, in may. i told you i was bad. thanks, erin!

sadly, or perhaps luckily, the seeds did not get planted this year. the very little that did get planted was very late, and due to lack of sun (it's literally been raining for a month straight), hasn't grown much at all. the seeds would have been wasted. they'll spend the winter in the freezer and next year we'll see how they do in an alaskan summer.

roxie, of sanna's bag, recently held a contest for her 600th post. rather than picking one or two winners, she generously picked everyone! almost a week ago now i was the ever-so-proud recipient of a skein of bamboo hand-dyed by Teresa Ruch from the portland handweavers guild.
it's got the loveliest dark blue and purple shades, highlighted by surprising green and magenta streaks. i love it - thanks roxie! now if i only knew what to make with it........

one of chuck's daughters (also in oregon, hmmm) has an etsy shop selling pendants she designs. apparently she's done well enough to be copied now, frustrating as that compliment is. she had promised way back when the gift of whatever pendant caught my eye. finally i looked through and made my choice, which arrived last week, along with an extra ladybug design (for chuck's nickname for me).the pendants were larger than i expected somehow from the etsy pictures (not that this was a problem), and i've got the smallest size. her designs are so simple that they enhance the natural wood of the pendant. the dark woods were really my favorites. thanks val!

while i am publically confessing my failings, i may as well add another. last weekend we went to the tanana valley fair, which after solstice, is practically the highlight of the summer. it is THE thing to go to. why, i'm not sure. back home we had the eastern states exposition, called the big E. that lasts 3 weeks, and you could spend all day there and still come back for more. the tanana fair on the other hand, takes about 2 hours if you walk slow and look at everything twice. my first summer, we'd heard so much hype from locals about it, our expectations were rather high. when i went with some friends from work, we walked through at work-speed and were done in a half hour. then stared at each other, saying, that's it?

now chuck and i go, and take our time. there's a couple food booths we always hit, the fried dough one (called elephant ears here, very appetizing eh?) and the homemade french fries & potato chip booth. there are artists galore up here, photos of mount mckinley and the northern lights being very popular of course, and some of them are very talented. we always walk slowly through their booths, trying not to drool or whip out the credit card. we might not have succeeded at that last one this year.

the really dangerous to me booth this year was a new one, offering hand-dyed and hand-spun yarns, along with stained glass items. oh, and spindles and roving. i held out against the spindles, and the hand-spun and dyed quiviut, but i was no match for two 1/2 pound hanks of hand-dyed merino, one lace weight and the other fingering/sock weight, or the hank of handspun merino dyed that mellow yellow i've been fascinated with lately. chuck was no help at all either - even he knew at $35 a skein it was a good deal and made me buy all three.*sigh* there goes my resolution to only buy yarn as needed. i have no idea at all what i'll do with those. i'm sure i'll figure something out.

and, again with chuck's encouragement, i finally signed up for a sock club. they've always sounded like fun, but seemed very pricy. now, i don't know if the fearless fibers one i signed up for is just a good deal, or if i've been buying more expensive sock yarn, but it seemed very reasonable. maybe it being only three months long helps too. i've been watching anne at knitspot make all kinds of socks and shawls from fearless fiber yarn, and wanted to try them out. here i go! each month's yarn comes with a pattern, and i get to choose the colors i want. so it's not quite as adventurous as most sock clubs, but it'll be a good start for me.

apparently falling off the yarn wagon hits pretty hard. linking photos to this post, i discovered some other recent additions to the stash (we won't talk about any possible internet orders that haven't arrived yet). while waiting for the fair to open, we stopped by a LYS in the neighborhood i'd only been to once. they have a rather random selection of books and yarns, along with spinning and weaving supplies. a skein of bearfoot jumped at me and wouldn't let me leave it. chuck insisted (i suppose we could say he was being a bad boy too?).and we had stopped by the LYS we visit most a couple weeks ago, and grabbed some opal on sale.

how can i explain myself? it calls to me, chuck enables, it comes home. at least we'll never run out of socks - once i make them all. hehe.

among the virtual photo stack are finished knits that i'll save for another day with one exception. in a draft started in the dark before summer, i discovered my finishing up notes on the anastasia socks. the finished photos never were posted for them, so here they are.they're very comfy cozy squishy and soft. the shibui seems to be good yarn, i machine washed and dried them with no ill effects. i'm lucky it's not sold locally or i might have another public confession to make.

in which we discover thumbs

2008-07-17T12:03:00.000-08:00

when the weather couldn't decide if it wanted to be warm or cool, and the office as usual was even more indecisive, i made a pair of handwarmers in a weekend. a lazy weekend at the end of may, which fit perfectly with the pattern name - aprilmay. they have a simple eyelet lace pattern that looks kind of wavy.the first mitt i made according to the directions (and used some stash yarn - whoo-hoo!), but the thumb was too tight. through a ravelry search i discovered there are all kinds of thumbs, and this one was a peasant one (or afterthought or any number of other names that i forget now).

you can see how it pulls the rest of the hand material, distorting it. basically a peasant thumb is where you leave a line of stitches somewhere on waste yarn and pick them up later to make the thumb. apparently i have noble thumbs though, because the mitt was pretty uncomfortable. it felt like someone was pinching my thumb.

that ravelry search led me to an awesome group with a thread all about thumbs, in which i learned all thumbs are not created equal. i followed some links to one very helpful blog, knitting in color, with a series of posts on different thumbs (they're listed down on the sidebar). a thumb gusset sounded like the way to go, actually increasing along the side to make room for the thumb. i compared a bunch of free patterns to learn how they made thumb gussets, and then made up the math for my stitch count and gauge. they came out pretty good.

no more distortion! and they were way more comfortable. i must just have fat (meaty?) thumbs, because i had chuck compare the two thumbs, thinking guys have bigger hands and all so he'd prefer the gusset. oddly enough, chuck liked the fit of the peasant thumb better. huh. at least i know for whenever i get around to making him gloves, right?

in making the gussets, i tried to have the increases grow with the pattern - 2 different ways. the second try came out a little better (the lines are cleaner), but after frogging the peasant thumb mitt already, i didn't care enough to take out the first one and redo it.an interesting side effect of the gussets was actually using less yarn. i expected the opposite, but it must be because the afterthought thumb stretches out the hand, so you need more material to have enough length. i knit fewer rows for the main body of the hand with the gussets to get the same length. so not only are gussets more comfortable (for me), they use less yarn! yay! now i just need to make a more utilitarian pair that i can layer over gloves for work.....

livengood to point hope...and back again

2008-07-16T14:29:00.001-08:00

livengood is an old mining town just a couple hours north of fairbanks (and not pronounced "livin' good" but liven like "enliven"). i went there in may for almost a week. people still mine there, and we were doing a little survey. the little we found was historic (technically anything over 50 years old is considered historic archaeology) and mining-related: rusted out cans, a metal box rigged up as a stove or refrigerator (it's covered by sod and goes back a couple feet),and a rotting log cabin,but mostly mining ditches that diverted water. some of them still held water.but the very coolest thing we found (people are always asking what THE coolest artifact i've found is - such a difficult question to answer, but easy this time) was a shovel some miner hung up on a birch branch and never came back for.another thing i discovered was a new term - niggerheads. alaska has lots of bogs, and in these boggy areas grow tussocks. basically clumps of grass growing in a kind of mushroom shape above the rest of the ground level. makes for very difficult walking at times, because you don't want to actually walk on them, but between them (where water is usually lurking too). anyway, apparently a common name for them back in the day (and i'm not sure how far back we're talking) was niggerheads. a coworker told me about it while we were hiking through some muskeg, and although i never thought of it before, they could look like dreads. it was funny and appalling at the same time. the term was accepted enough that offical names on US geologic surveys included it, like niggerhead ridge.

this was bad enough to my way of thinking (niggerhead's not exactly a compliment, right?), but after the coworker explains that some politically correct black guy (in the 70s?) got the names changed (and only to blackhead ridge instead, not much of an improvement, i'd rather call it dreadridge), both he and my other coworker express their opinions that they should have stuck to the original niggerhead. um, hello? they said "nigger" wasn't an insult, and referred to mark twain calling huck's slave friend "nigger jim." uh, yeah. i think mark twain was recording southern culture and mocking it, not saying that black people weren't offended by the term. this time i was appalled and not amused. i'd like to see them go shout nigger in the middle of a ghetto and see how many people take kindly to it. there wasn't much i could do but shake my head and let it go.

after a couple projects closer to town, i had a fun adventure 2 weeks ago. i went up to point hope, which is way up north (farthest i've been so far in alaska) and almost in tomorrow.

View Larger Map
(that point farthest south is fairbanks, with livengood just above it. point hope is way out on the edge there, if you zoom in you can see it's just this little spit going off into the ocean.)

i was hoping to somehow (magically) see russia, but the point was fogged in the few days i was there. the point is just a gravel beach built up by the sea over time, and the village moves every 20 years or so.there's not really any soil there. and yet these tiny tundra flowers find niches to grow in, making small clusters barely rising above the ground. i was fascinated by the variety and maxed out the macro function on my camera. most of those came out pretty well. the pebbles in the background of those flowers are maybe half-dollar sized. it's great how nature fits prettiness in wherever it can.

despite being the middle of june, the temps were only in the upper 30s F (2-4 C) and everyone still had their winter coats on. my first glimpse of the arctic ocean (from the ground anyway) looked like this:ice floes that apparently came to town a couple days before i did. they even moved like in the movies, chunks drifting silently in opposite directions on the current swirls. it was mesmerizing, and a bit eerie with only a creak or an occasional drip of the melting ice to break the stillness.

last week we were back in livengood for a dull, and very dusty, survey along one of the wonders of alaska: a gravel highway. the best thing about that trip was being able to stay at the same company camp from before (even though we weren't working for them this time). all the people there are extremely pleasant, and the atmosphere is very positive. plus the cooks are great. the most adventure we had was when we were almost home. we'd just turned off the highway onto farmer's loop in fairbanks, when we heard an odd sound from a rear tire. a sort of rubbing sound - but it couldn't be flat because the truck was still level. that lasted maybe two minutes before the truck suddenly wasn't level anymore. because of this

at least we were back in town. changing a flat on the dalton would not have been fun, what with the gravel and dust and tractor trailers zooming by. well, if you can call an exploded tire a flat. that's what happens when your boss puts an unbalanced camper on the work truck. the tires obviously didn't appreciate it at all.

i worked on a pair of diagonal rib socks for chuck in point hope and the last trip to livengood. the first one was cast on in JFK airport on our way to MA in may. my gauge was a bit tighter than the pattern called for though, and the ribbing was standing out more than the diagonal mock cables, which was not the effect i was going for. so i ended up frogging half a foot, and adding a couple extra stitches to the fake cables. i was much happier with the results. i was working on the heel while waiting for the flight out of point hope, and talking with a couple guys who'd been working there. finally one of them asked if i was making socks for myself (i was impressed he knew what it was, so many people have to ask). after i told him they were for my husband, he said,

"i wish my wife would knit me some socks"

that gave me a nice warm glow. the first sock was finished sunday, and as soon as i cast off and chuck tried it on, he said "i need another one."

sigh. there is no rest for the weary. but rather than leaving (again) this week, i have a reprieve and can actually go to knit night! and do some laundry, and buy some groceries maybe. but probably (still) not bother with the cobwebs.

stop and smell the roses grass seed

2008-06-23T22:33:00.002-08:00

today driving home, i was hit by one of my favorite smells in the world: grass going to seed. at least i think that's what it is. i've spent several years now trying to pin it down. the smell takes me back to summers on hammonasset beach with my grandparents in late august. sometimes driving along, or walking through the woods, a wisp of that drifts by and pulls me into the green-gold of high summer. i'll breathe deep and try to hold the smell as long as i can. if they made perfume out of it, i swear i'd wear it every day. i love it.

enough that when i smelled it on the way home (detouring around construction), i slowed down to the speed limit just so i could smell it longer. plus the detour goes through town, and you just never know where santa's helpers will be.

luckily for me, because while i was driving my 35 mph, the truck ahead of me turned right towards the high school, and another truck at the stop sign decided it was his turn to cross the street. i slammed on the brakes (schreeching tires and skidding at the end) and the truck was still a foot or three in front of my jeep when i stopped. we would have made a lovely t-bone otherwise.

all of a sudden i was very grateful for a lot of things:

that we just put new tires on

that my brakes work

that i reacted quickly

even for the skid at the end, because it turned me further away from the truck

that i slowed down for that grass seed

and maybe most of all, for our prayers to travel safe every day

i was kinda freaked out. and i saw the guy turn his head at the sound of my tires, like, what's happening. i've tried to put myself in his spot, but i still have no clue what he was thinking (was he thinking?). he was maybe 30 feet ahead of me when he pulled out. just barely enough space to stop. and if i wasn't paying attention?

so lesson for the day was: stop and smell the grass seed. it maybe could save your life.

here, there and everywhere

2008-06-23T13:31:00.000-08:00

just as the trees were budding,back in the middle of may, i went north to livengood for (almost) a week of field worka day of rest, and another day of fieldwork, then i was off to see my brother commissioned as an officer in the Air Force back homewe got back with a week to spare before the church's youth group camp for girls (inventively named girl's camp), which i was organizing this year, explodedthat was half a week, and after a day to try and do laundry (we totally ignored the cobwebs and the dust), we raced down to chitina after work friday for dipnetting

we caught one fish.

to make up for it, we camped out saturday night too, rather than racing back for church. in a real campground, minus the wind and silt.just the one relaxing day was priceless.

last week we just tried to breathe and find something to eat in our depleted cupboards (still no time to shop), did at least 10 loads of laundry (for 2 people!!!), had knitting group over, and stared in dismay at our overgrown yardour garden may be doomed this year.

on the bright side, i was a good girl and took lots of pictures, of family and scenery and even some knitting that got finished and gifted, and downloaded and uploaded it all yesterday (bumping my free flickr account way over the 200 picture limit). whew. so expect to see some more illustrated bedtime stories soon.

one of the best things about alaska.......

2008-06-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

my backyard at 12-something or other last night/early this morningah, solstice. you gotta love it. no flash either (the flash actually made it look darker than it was - weird, huh).

sunrise: 3.00 amsunset: 00.43 am (the next day)

fairbanks has a solstice festival downtown, which is ok, but i have to say swedish midsommar celebrations knock it out of the park.

speaking of which, here's a cool shot (my sister took) from 2 years ago when we actually went to the midnight sun baseball game (and a ball got knocked out of the park and chuck ran and wrestled a fence for it, then had to wrestle a little kid to keep it, but we won't go there).the sun just sat on the horizon and never really went below it.

cool, huh?

making babies

2008-04-30T16:46:00.000-08:00

not me, silly!

someone at church did though, one of the few couples who can look past the surface disparities and see me and chuck as people. we like them so i made a couple small things for their new girl.although the color would suit a boy as well, if they had another. it didn't hurt that i had an extra ball of baby ull dying to be made into something. for someone else obviously, since firetruck red's not my color.

the vine lace hat used maybe half a skein, and took only a couple hours. it looked so small i was afraid it wouldn't fit, but it does!the magic slippers looked even tinier, but were actually a bit loose on the girl! and they are perfect for using up sock leftovers (exactly as claimed by the pattern) except i didn't have any other superwash leftovers.so they ended up with a matching set. and i've still got a half a skein to use on something....maybe a baby shedir hat. that way i make a pattern i've been wanting to (but smaller and faster), and have a random baby gift on hand!

somebody's confused

2008-04-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

this morning, 9am-ish (yes, i was running late for work), view out my bedroom door.the slight blurriness in the picture is actually because it's still snowing.

we are not amused.

i thought april fool's was the first day of april, not the last. winter has been over for at least 2 months by my internal clock. what's wrong with mother nature's clock?

a very merry unbirthday to me, to me

2008-04-28T15:40:00.000-08:00

those endless days are slipping by me so fast it'll be fall before i know it. but i pushed the pause button for a half hour to sneak in a post.

ages of endless days ago, my contest yarn got here. yarn in the mail always feel like a present, doesn't it? lucy has some pictures on her blog of the actual spinning, but here's what it looks like after its trip across the country.mmmm, blue angora. i've been eyeing it since it got here, and finally swatched it this weekend. i knit it up at 4.5 stitches per inch on US4s and i think i'd still go up a size. this is my first time knitting handspun (and angora), and it was so fun to roll it up and see the variations in thickness and color. according to ravelry it's only 170 yards, but looks like way more rolled up. it's 2 ply (i think) and silky and smooth. something visible and against the skin, not to mention lacy, would be perfect for it. and there the dreams and ~~dithering~~ decision making start.

any suggestions?

around the time lucy's yarn came in, another yarn present came in the mail (even though i paid for it, it still feels like a gift when it comes. maybe because of our still-kind-of-tight-budget, or because i forget about it, so it's a surprise by the time it gets here).this stuff's destined to become a tahoe, one of those nice 'throw it on as you go out the door cuz you're too lazy (crazy?) to wear a coat' sweaters. i been needing one of those. like all winter. it was almost irresistable, but i put off swatching and casting on until the FFF shawl was done, and one of chuck's sleeves. the yarn is lovely, soft but with an underlying feeling of substance (that would be the wool bit of it, i'm thinking). i did cast on and knit a few inches before the hem started bugging me.the pattern makes a sewn hem by casting on, knitting like nothing, making a purl flip row and just sewing it together when the sweater's done. sewing - yuck. this was not attractive. so i did a provisional cast on and knit the hem together, but i must have messed up my row count cuz it was flipping. we don't like that. so i frogged it back and i'll start it again sometime, with a smaller needle for the rows that end up on the inside. and pay better attention to the row count.

a bonus: a small project finished somewhere in there (i am still working on those stash-busting, project-finishing goals of mine - although we'd still better not talk about the striped turtleneck sweater. or the silk cami. anyway. the small project.) the building block slippers from socks, socks, socks. they were kinda fun to make, fast and origami-like. does it get any better than that? maybe if you don't use chunky yarn. they're a bit sloppy, and since i ran out of the red and blue yarn ends, one slipper has (oh, horrors!) some orange. mostly on the bottom where i (luckily) can't really see it.the second one is more true to the pattern with more seams, and that slipper is not quite as sloppy. but they're for the house anyway, so who cares. right?

and that's today's half hour break. *sigh* back to the blur.

time is relative

2008-03-30T22:02:00.002-08:00

right now we're in this transitional period where light equals daytime and dark equals night. it's kind of a weird sensation really. i'm so ready for spring, even though i have no idea how march is already over. since the new year i've been in this time blur, where one day feels like forever, but then the endless days blur into one and seem to have gone by fast. terry pratchett said something like that once.......i may have to look it up.

but anyway. somehow march has whizzed by and i still have pictures from the beginning of february that i haven't posted yet. ajajaj.

there was the ice park, which was held a couple weeks early. the temps were in the 40s for a whole week, so they panicked and moved the contest up. a bunch of sculptures ended up classical styledue to bits and pieces melting off. we went with our 3 stepbrats (and a dad but he's not in any pics)

the 18month old decided halfway through that it was way past his bedtime, he was bored, and maybe if he screamed *nonstop* he would get to bed faster. he did. so we didn't really get to see the multiple block sculptures, and only got a few pictures.

a chameleon and a very odd abstract couple.

and my favorites: a different kind of seafood dinner, and a teardrop. i love how the carvers can make such realistic drops of water.

the two older stepbrats stayed the night. i read them a grimm's faery tale for bed, which they repeated almost verbatim to their dad when he picked them up the next day *raised eyebrows*. since it was warm out, we went outside for a bit. their dad was literally throwing them around.

they crunched into the snow and disappeared from view. they seemed to like it thoughafter (finally) finishing the snowflake headband, i jumped right on another quick fix, the army helmet hat. that went so fast it didn't even make it up on the sidebar. the fit is a bit snug, right on the line between just right and a little too short. the pattern picture only shows the side view, but i noticed on ravelry that the hat looked a bit small on almost everyone, so i wasn't that surprised. the applied i-cord in front was kind of fun and really topped off the helmet look. i love the yarn, but noticed it has very little twist, so it might pill. that's the sort of thing i've been noticing more about yarn, how it's spun, but alas not until after i've got it home. so far no problems though. i may frog the top and add a couple rows before the decreases, just for a little more height. some day. right now i'm just happy it's done and cozy to wear.

and speaking of being done, i even picked up the FFF shawl this week. knit night at my house, and i figured the pleasure of company would dull the irritation of the shawl. and i finished it this weekend. off the needles. whoo-hoo!!! technically i still have to weave in the ends, but as far as i'm concerned it's done. thank goodness.

limited knitting time has forced me to focus on one thing at a time, which inwardly makes me horribly twitchy, but does get results. i also finished a sleeve for chuck's sweater he says it looks like a sting ray. i could see that i guess. i even cast on the second sleeve yesterday.

a couple weeks ago now, i gave a presentation at chuck's rotary group about alaskan archaeology. it went pretty well despite my swedish computer refusing to play nice with the projector (after a week or so getting it all together *sigh*). the group was small enough that they could still kind of see the powerpoint slides on my laptop. i think the problem may have been the screen resolution, so i'll have to figure out how to change that.

still, everything seemed to flow really well, and nobody got the glazed-over look of too much detail. archaeology is very fun, just in very short bursts. i was glad i could explain what field work really is like yet still keep everyone's interest. they even said i could come back in the summer and do it again! so it was fun, and i was flattered.

another compliment i got recently was at the doctor's office. i was waiting for chuck and knitting (on the snowflake headband i think) and some guy walking by thanked me for keeping a tradition alive. he said it's lots of work and most people don't bother anymore. so even though it was totally random, it was kind of cool to get a sincere compliment for doing something i love.

just for tanya

2008-03-24T22:21:00.000-08:00

about a month ago now, i called tanya for her birthday. we met freshmen year of college, in the dorms, although thanks to a psycho roommate we didn't become real friends until the next year. we were roommates through junior year when we both went on missions (her to taiwan and me to sweden). after our missions, tanya lived in her family's condo and i kept jumping apartments til i graduated, but we still hung out.

now tanya lives in minnesota, and i'm in alaska. yet no matter how much time goes between our conversations, we talk like it was just yesterday we were walking all over provo late at night, jumping in puddles and laughing at the paperclip our roommate glued in the thermostat to stop me from turning it down. we talked for two hours the other night like it was nothing.

amazingly, it's been over 10 years we've been friends now. sometimes i think tanya made sure we did out of pure stubborness, because i've always been slow at making friends and most of my friendships seemed to have a 2 year expiration date. she sure showed me ;)

and on her birthday, the only thing she asked for was pictures of my door. so i figured if i was gonna do it, i'd do it right. the door is made of thick boards, with old school hingeswith a lift latch (the inside door has the lock)the crossbeams have studded bolts in them, so they have this castle fortress look about them. unfortunately the stain at the bottom is bleaching out. but that's the door. like it tanya?the sky was beautiful when i was taking the door pictures, so i grabbed a shot for the hope of spring.

tanya almost always calls me out for not taking pics of myself. every time she asks, i'm struck dumb with astonishment, thinking, i swear i took a picture. . . . . . . .as i think back and realize, no, i didn't. i never remember to. she knows what i look like, i know what i look like, it's the same no matter where i am. but since she asked, here's a shot of me (and chuck) from a painful church activitywe're still not sure what the point was, but we were "royalty" for the night. complete with scary outfits and gilt crowns. and that blonde wig. they pulled our names out of a hat for the privelege. at least it was only an hour.

happy birthday tanya. enjoy the pictures :D

and the third fifth one fit just right

2008-03-20T14:13:00.001-08:00

the snowflake headband, my quick stash busting project, is done. after about five tries. by the time i finally had the fit and (more or less) the look i wanted, i was starting to feel a bit like goldilocks. this one's too tight, this one rolls too much. and this one, and this one and this one.the first plain knit cast on border rolled something awful, the seed stitch border rolled (and looked weird with only 3 rows anyway), the picot edge didn't roll quite so bad, but halfway through it i tried it on. it went on ok, but you can see the stitches were stretched way more than is good for them (and the rolling, can you see the rolling?).the stranded knitting had a tighter gauge than my stockinette swatch. *sigh* so that version went away too, and since i was starting over anyway, i racked my brains to think of an edge that absolutely positively would not roll. the light clicked on late one night - duh! ribbing. i started over with one more pattern repeat and ribbing. which rolled almost worse than any of the others. so i went back to the picot, since it did the best job of them all. it still rolled a bit, but not as much as the other edges i tried. oddly enough, the heavily stranded snowflake bit in the middle never once tried to roll away from me. guess that extra layer kept it in line.

all in all, it turned out pretty wellblocking helped smooth the wavy picot a bunch, but i can the edges wouldn't need much encouragement to get their groove back. oh well. i still like it. there's a couple spots where i knitted a bit too tight, but overall i'm proud with the results for my first try. you can't say i didn't get enough practice in either, i think i could have knit 2 or 3 headbands for all the ripping back i did. the floats are fairly even, and the reverse imaging looks cool. although that blocking crease doesn't. i need to get one of those foam heads for blocking circular objects.

after my glamour photo shoot, i realized it may be a bit wide. my head looks a couple inches taller (and blockier).but i can live with that.

i used less than 1 skein of each of the colors, a little more of the lighter color. there might be enough left to make a narrower headband out of the smaller snowflake motifs.......

spring's here!!!!........isn't it?

2008-03-19T17:42:00.002-08:00

that's what these fellers thought anyway we found 3 of them in our living room this weekend. all sorts of questions sprang to mind: where did they come from? do they eat yarn? did we miss these huge caterpillers eating our plants and turning into cocoons? where on earth did they come from? is there more of them?

luckily the internet came to the rescue on some of those questions. they're apparently called compton tortoiseshells and are true butterflies (ie they won't eat my wool. whew.). the adults hibernate in groups over the winter. three isn't a very large group, but whatever. that lovely +40F weather we had a couple weeks ago must have woken them up. . . . .and they hit the snooze button a few times.

someone at chuck's work said she's gotten them before too - apparently they like log houses for their winter beds. we've been calling them chuck's butterflies, because (like chuck) they don't know how to sleep late when it's good for them. how long they'll last i don't know, cuz we're a little short on butterfly food.

the only down side to having butterflies around is they are just as likely to be underfoot as fluttering around the lamps. and if you've got a butt-ugly 70s rug, well, it can get hard to spot them.can you find the butterfly? talk about camouflage.

i don't think we've stepped on them, though. *yet*

but if you're anxious for spring like those butterflies, go check out aksunflour's contest: when will the snow be gone from her (alaskan) yard? go get your guesses in quick quick cuz the contest ends tomorrow!

your voice sounds like hers, but your phone doesn't

2008-03-07T10:13:00.000-09:00

the other day i was driving home when the phone rang with a number i didn't recognize. i thought maybe it was chuck on a different bank phone (why i don't know) so i picked it up. the voice on the other end wasn't quite chuck's, but then the combination of highway white noise, my music, and a little static might have been responsible for that. i mean, i don't want to say i don't know my own husband's voice, right? and the voice assumed i knew him, and even had a slight southern edge to it like chuck's does sometimes.

so i played along, looking for clues to verify if it was chuck or not. the voice was talking about a clinton-obama debate (and i'm thinking why would chuck call for that? he talks big about voting, but really he's just as politically apathetic as i am). but then he says he has to study for a test, and that was the clincher. so i asked who he meant to call, and after we figured out what he dialed wrong, he said

"your voice sounds like hers, but your phone doesn't"

you suppose it was the static or the tupac playing in the background that didn't sound like hers?

reflections on the black hole that was february

2008-03-05T22:17:00.000-09:00

today's temperature of 40F was a pleasant reflection of the -40F weather we had about a month ago. comparison does make all the difference - those 80 degrees makes +40F feel like short weather.

february was a long, busy, boring month that somehow went by really fast in retrospect. i stayed home a couple days when the temp hit -47F (it sounds impressive but after -20F you can't feel the changes in the cold except by noticing how fast you lose feeling in the extremities), and even got a bunch of knitting in and took pictures of it.

although somehow actually getting the pictures up never happened. *sigh*

remember the 3F shawl? that i ran out of yarn on? at the end of 3 skeins it was still just an inch or two shy of elbow length. arg. and then i went for more yarn, and they actually were sold out of that color. is that allowed? so they put it on order for me. the break was probably a good thing, cuz the shawl and me were getting tired of each other.

while i was at the store, i wandered around a bit (of course). the owner must have had an epiphany because there was all kinds of new yarns in there. louet gems, koigu, noro, more solid color sock yarn (yay!), and mirasol, the very yarn i was drooling over in anchorage a while ago. there's a hat i've been wanting to make, and chuck said i could get some mirasol sulka for it. so i was just waiting and waiting for that baby ull to come in. which it did last week.and that's the hat yarn. black, with some blue highlights, and super soft. hopefully it doesn't pill awfully. amazingly enough, the baby ull colors are a perfect match again. i can't believe i'm on my third dye lot and there's no color change line in the shawl. although i didn't actually start working on the shawl again yet, so i might still be surprised. but so far i've got to say that baby ull is the yarn to run out of.

some other things have been distracting me. lots of frogging, a couple (relatively) quick projects, and life.

i frogged the anastacia sock i had started. then the wound was too fresh to cast on right away, so i started an irish moss sleeve instead. sleeve rows go way faster than front and back rows. although i haven't worked on it for a couple weeks now, so who knows if chuck's sweater will be done before the snow melts. luckily here i've still got till april. maybe may.

the half clessidra i had got frogged too. the pattern got too fiddly with the yarn i substituted, but i will try again sometime with normal sock yarn (and thus no fiddliness). and i've been pondering the silk cami tent i made last summer with knitpicks shine. . . . .lovely yarn, nice drape. . . .i think it would make awesome curtains :)

there's a candlelight lace pattern in barbara walker i've been wanting to try, which would be a good match with the yarn for our bedroom windows. i'm not totally decided yet, but chuck won't let us go curtainless in the bedroom cuz he can't sleep in the summer for the light. but all we've got are the super-fugly 70s curtains we inherited with the house. if i gotta have curtains, i might as well have fun with it.

one of the life distractions was the yearly Air Force awards dinner, a banker affair. i don't mind the banker affairs so much except for dressing up. but even with a skirt on i was underdressed there - the people not in uniform were decked out in prom dresses. so everyone's all fancy fancy, and then they start calling out the award winners.

suddenly i was re-living a high school assembly. the cheers were an odd contrast to the otherwise high tone of the evening. my very favorite moment was when both of the two MCs used the phrase "best of the best." MIB anyone? i would have laughed out loud except everyone was so serious so serious for that part. i love how will smith mocks the military guy at the beginning of men in black, i would watch the whole movie just for that one scene.

speaking of watching movies for one little thing, we went and watched national treasure 2 just so i could see riley. darned if i know the actor-dude's name, but i love his character. he makes watching nicolas cage bearable. he's smart, hot, and funny - if i wasn't married to chuck i'd go hunt him down and marry him. just like that. seriously.

and (spoiler) why oh why did they have mayan gold in the dakotas? the mayans didn't even get into texas. my archaeology self wouldn't let me enjoy the end of the movie with the ridiculous hordes of clearly mayan artifacts thousands of miles away from their natural habitat. at least in the first national treasure they explained how the templar treasure made its way to america. ajajaj. it was too implausible, even for the movies. lesson: you just can't trust hollywood.

between work (very busy and very dull, but still not as bad as subbing) and life i really haven't got much knitting time in. it's a horrible bummer, my fingers itch to do it and it just seems wrong not to knit in the dead of winter (february always feels like the dead of winter). while i added an inch here and an inch there, i was dreaming of the next project. awful, isn't it?

tahoe is already up next for sweater project, once chuck's sweater is done (and i finish that turtleneck, but i always manage to gloss over that bit when i dream). my delaying strategy is wearing thin though. the yarn is all picked out for it, the persian violet incense at elann.com. i was waiting for the checkbook to say i could buy it, but chuck got our tax return done already, so the checkbook's given the go-ahead. i'm trying to hold off, cuz once the yarn is in the house it'll be much harder to resisit casting on. if all my knit thoughts added inches, all sorts of things would be done already.

one project that's made it through the black knitting hole of february was the dark mark scarf for sara (the second project is blocking as we speak). it's been so long since i made a scarf, i forgot how fast they go.first time illusion knitting, and i love it. way easy, even with following charts, and i love seeing the pattern emerge. i almost wish i wore scarves, i'd keep this one for myself. but sara will give it more love than me, so it'll be heading off to her this week. the back is almost as cool as the fronti (accidentally) knit an extra inch between charts, and left off the fringe, with very little yarn left over. the pattern almost exactly uses both skeins, especially if you have fringe, and still makes a decent length scarf.doesn't chuck look cute in it? i call that his scary joker face.

and as long as we're on harry potter topics, if you're not sure which camp to join, why not this one?not sure if it's pointed at a specific candidate, but it made me laugh. why can't i ever find the stores that are selling these things???

happy anniversary to us!

2008-03-03T22:55:00.001-09:00

and happy birthday to sara! (not that she ever looks at this, but she is my sister and all)

since we got married two years ago, we've been struggling to pay off debts from chuck's previous marriage. slowly, and very agonizingly, we've been making progress, enough that the last few months we started thinking we might actually pay it all off some day. so for our anniversary we decided that rather than buy each other presents, we would do something together and give the checkbook a rest (i'm not sure that actually worked, but that's totally ok).

so today we both took the day off, and slept in. chuck crept out at 8 (cuz despite my best efforts, he has not learned to keep his eyes shut much later than that) and got me theseso pretty, so pretty.

chuck made us breakfast, then we headed out for chena hot springs. we figured out that the last time we were there was almost two years ago when sara was up for the summer. then we tried to figure out how to get our very own hot springs in our back yard because they are the most amazing thing ever. turns you right into a limp noodle and you couldn't be un-relaxed if you tried.

the coolest thing was seeing the temperature contrast: steaming water next to frost-covered rocks and trees.after the hot springs (and showers to rid ourselves of the wonderful sulpher perfume), we went to the turtle club for dinner. that's the best steak restaurant in the world i think. and that coming from a non-steak person (i hardly ever eat it on purpose). chuck could eat it every day though. you've heard of steaks that melt in your mouth? i think the turtle club was the origin of that phrase. they are, however, a bit spendy (even for fairbanks) so it was a special treat to go there.

we also got the coolest surprise of the day there. we're waiting for the check when the waitress walks over with 2 cakes, which she lights and gives one to our neighbors - and one to us! when we came into the restaurant, chuck was on the phone with his son and mentioned it was our anniversary. the hostess picked up on it and sent us a "turtle cake."cool huh? now that's customer service. a great ending to a wonderful, relaxing day. spending the day together was the perfect gift to each other.

daydreaming

2008-02-21T15:52:00.000-09:00

today the temperature is 41 F and sunny in north pole and stockholm. there's some great cosmic meaning in that, but other than i wish i was there, i'm not sure what.

i can picture the long row of people on the farsta strand pendeltåg station (just outside stockholm), their backs to the forest, eyes closed, and faces raised to the sun, soaking in the impossible warmth after the dark of winter. that image from my first winter's ending in sweden always comes to mind when the sun reappears.

if i close my eyes, maybe click my beat up sneakers together, and dream really hard, i'll hear the electric lines twanging and open my eyes just as the train comes in.

helpful hint

2008-02-06T00:36:00.000-09:00

don't measure your gauge in dim-lit air force hotels. you might measure 9 stitches per inch and not realize till after you've knit the heel on your toe up sock and tried it on, that hmmm, the sock is a bit large, and after re-measuring in your well-lit living room discover you're actually knitting 8 stitches per inch. which means you didn't have to muck about with the pattern either.

arg.

of course the genius of toe-up socks is supposed to be that you can try them on as you go, but i can't really tell if the foot fits proper until after the heel myself. unfortunately.

ribbit ribbit.

in which we learn another disadvantage to having a fake christmas tree

2008-02-04T22:03:00.000-09:00

it doesn't die. (i know you thought that was one of the advantages, but hang with me) since it doesn't die, there's no needles piling up on your floor and it doesn't ever turn into a fire hazard. which means there isn't any real urgency to take it down, if say, one were to travel an inordinate amount in december and january, so that one might not actually get the tree down until the day before superbowl sunday.

ahem.

i haven't been on such a traveling rollercoaster since i was a project-hopping archaeologist. you get home, unpack, wash your clothes, catch up on a few bills, maybe talk to a couple people, squeeze in an email (hej lasse!), pack and repeat. ojojoj.

two weeks after getting back from MA we went to anchorage for a long MLK weekend. chuck had bank training mon and tues, so we went down fri and stretched it out. i came to the conclusion that if you're not shopping for something, there's not much to do in anchorage in the winter.

especially when the hotels don't have internet. between traveling for work, and chuck's random training meetings, i'm getting good at sizing up hotels. i've noticed something odd: the expensive hotels have gold framed mirrors and fancier looking sheets but they actually offer the same amenities as cheaper hotels - for a fee. so you're paying more . . . . for less. the midrange hotels tend to have free breakfasts, free internet, microwaves and fridges. and, well, i like those better. i'm paying less for a room, and getting more services with it. the marriot spring hill has my votes.

so, without internet to catch up on blog posts and emails, what's a girl to do?

go to yarn stores and title wave of course.

title wave is a gem among book stores. it beats out barnes and noble any day. they sell new books and used ones in really good shape, plus out of prints and hard to find books. chuck gave me 50 bucks to spend (cuz if i decided the amount who knows what it'd be) and i walked away with 13 books and a dollar to spare. whoo-hoo.

i found some forgotten realms books (used to read them pre-high school and lately have been having urges to revisit some of those stories), a couple of l'engle's austin family series that i missed reading somehow, a cookbook on herb vinegars (so i could use those herbs i dried out this summer), sword singer by jennifer roberson, zel by donna napoli (awesome retelling of rapunzel), dawn by elie wiesel and a wild card never-been-read winter queen by devin cary. i was quite satisfied.

even though chuck promised to go with me to the yarn store (far north yarns, web site out of service), i went ahead by myself to ~~set him up for the kill~~ scope it out. sweater yarn was on the list, but somehow the fiber and the colors refused to match up for me. except for this one yarn, ooooo, it was tempting. sulka from mirasol, merino, alpalca and silk. felt wonderful, and they even had colors i liked. but.....the price was a bit much for our checkbook. and i sure couldn't figure out a 2-3 skein project for myself. darn.

since sock yarn doesn't count, and they had louet gems, one of the few sources for solid colored sock yarn, we grabbed a couple skeins of that. (before my resolution by the way - i think)

blah color for chuck, blue for me. merino wool, machine wash, and solid colors. i've been wanting to try some, and it does seem a crime to walk out of a yarn store empty handed. i sat and knit with the staff for a bit. it was so nice to be in a yarn store and feel comfortable. the one i normally frequent in fairbanks has an odd atmosphere that i haven't ever felt comfortable in, no matter how much i've spent on yarn there.

we squeeked back into fairbanks in time for knit night, where i discovered i had my first ravelry convert. whoo-hoo! she signed up after the last knit night, and got in that very day. her eyes widened and shined with that ravelry-struck gleam, as she said, "i only looked up felted patterns and there were so many. . . . .ooooooo that place is bad"

things are starting to quiet down as we get settled back into life. between work and catching up, knitting time has been at a premium. as in practically non-existant. i guess those cushy subbing jobs spoiled me with extra knitting time, not to mention slightly shorter work days. still i'm plugging away at everything, without any miraculous advances. and trying to ignore the itch to cast on something new.

my book stack has been neglected lately too. i'm trying to borrow less books from the library at a time, so i can actually read them before i have to return them. elie wiesel's memoirs are going slowly, cuz it's january's choice for a dying book club, and i didn't want to finish it way before we met and forget my thoughts on it. but we still haven't met, so i'm going ahead and finishing it. i made it through trickster's choice and trickster's queen though, both excellent books more on the sneaky spy side of fantasy then the other tamora pierce books. i've got the first book in the protector of the small series, first test, and beka cooper in the stack too now. sometimes i find an author and i want to read everything they've written. i did that with elie wiesel about (ouch) ten years ago, and now i'm in the mood to go back and re-read some of his works and digest them some more.

this weekend we finally bought a proper snow shovel (archaeologists can be picky about things like shovels) so i can start chipping away at the melted hump on the deck. it appeared during a thanksgiving warm spell when the snow slid off the roof onto the deck, where it froze up again before we got back. mildly dangerous, and starting to get on my nerves. now i can do something about it! yay! (i'm one of those rare and odd people that like to shovel, so i actually am glad)

oh, and if you need to do your weekly shopping, and it just happens to be payday weekend and superbowl saturday, um, don't. cuz there might be some lines. across the whole front of the store, down the frozen aisle,
and past the milk cases.and we weren't even the last people in line.

go patriots

2008-02-03T21:45:00.000-09:00

yeah, i know. they lost. which was not that surprising. disappointing, but not surprising. any good patriots fan knows their mercurial character, how they flame up and burn out at the most inconvenient moment. if there was any good time for them to lose a game, it would be at the end of an awesome season 18-0, at the superbowl.

*sigh*

at least i don't have any cocky statements to live down. a win sure would have been nice.

but you know?

they're still my team.

so go patriots.

ETA: check here for an awesome description of the red sox/patriot fan mentality. she nails it right on the head.

vacation crumbs

2008-01-27T20:28:00.000-09:00

the candy bar's all gone, but there's still some crumbs left. small crumbs. honest.

our last full day in MA, we squeezed in a yarn store trip. finally. my idea of vacation is finding yarn shops and checking them out. unfortunately, that's not chuck's idea of vacation. after possibly some pouting on my part, we went to webs. chuck was suitably impressed by the size of the store - until a worker reminded us to "not forget the warehouse."

chuck's jaw might have dropped. he might have broken out into a sweat, thinking of how the checkbook would yell at us if he let me loose in a yarn warehouse. then again, maybe not, since he practically forced me to pick some yarn before leaving the store. seriously, he gets this "you will buy something for yourself while we are here" glare in his eye. he spoils me rotten.

we ended up with sock yarn for me (left), and some for chuck (right). they had all kinds of luscious yarns, but alas, i'm the kind of girl that forgets to bring all the details for the sweater(s) i want to make. and doesn't dare guess on the quantity, cuz i just know i'll run out. *sigh* we got some yarn for sara's dark mark scarf though,

that i'll be making her for christmas. after the fact, obviously. notice that i actually got the yarn specified in the pattern, please. aren't i a good girl?

since i finished up the christmas knitting, i've been swamped with ideas mulitplying faster than rabbits - and definitely faster then i can knit them. i don't really do new year's resolutions, since i make goals as i ~~trash~~ achieve them, but finishing up a bunch of projects around the same time made me kind of reflective.

i've really got the sweater bug. socks are good (portable, fast, mostly mindless and inexpensive) but i'm just itching to make sweaters. my normal knitting habit is to have a couple smaller projects, and one large (ie sweater-like) project going at the same time. in an attempt to quell the sweater bug yet not freak out the checkbook (it's kind of touchy this time of year), i came up with a plan. simple, brilliant, time tested. rather than splurging on 1-2 skeins (usually sock yarn) cuz i feel like i can afford it, save up for the sweater yarn. and knit from the sock yarn stash (since i won't be splurging on the sock yarn).

my stash is not very big at all - it covers maybe two bookshelves - but it's starting to bother me in the anal organizational sort of way. it just sits there. that we cannot have. some of it is sock yarn, which will obviously become socks, but there's a couple skeins of random yarn. i'm sure i had something in mind when i purchased it, but it's long gone now. so i've got to figure out some small projects to use them up. which is not the easiest thing in the world when all i hear is sweaters calling my name.

along those lines, temptations like ravelry and knitty have been luring me with loads of free patterns to neglect the knitting books that i actually have. in my ravelry library, where you can see what books you've used, i think i've only used 2 books that i own. gulp. why am i ignoring them? so i'd like to knit at least one thing from each book i own. to justify buying them and all.

that was as far as my reflections took me. simple plan: knit from stash, knit from books, only buy sweater yarn. it sounds good, don't you think? i hope it works.

in the meantime, i'm working on what's on the needles already. mostly. the priority list keeps playing musical chairs. the FFF shawl should have been done weeks ago, so that's at the top. i may have only half a skein left to knit. if it behaves itself. once that's done, i'll start sara's dark mark. last sunday i cast on a pair of socks,anastacia, in the lovely new yarn from webs. it looks a bit dark here, but that's what it looks like in real life too.

my plan is already set in motion, using a pattern booklet i bought last year (reynolds #82390), with some stash yarn (knitpicks telemark), and a 3mm needle (i figured with the rest of the details i might as well throw in the needle and look like i know what i'm talking about), i cast on for thisnot the actual hat, since hats are too hot, but a headband, cuz my ears still freeze, using the main snowflake pattern from the brim. i figured it was just wide enough. and small enough to try out color stranding - and use up some of those random stash skeins. you know what? it's not so bad. i did knit a couple rows before remembering i could use one color per hand. duh. when i sneak in a row or two, i even like it. who knew?

and the project left without a seat is: chuck's sweater. all i need to do is make some sleeves, but this FFF(ing) shawl past its deadline is pushing it out of the lineup. not to mention the other projects pushed on the backburner for When I Have More Time To Think About Them - and really, when will that be? they're part of the plan too, finish finish finish. so they won't be hanging around, clogging up my sidebar, and besides, i get more knitwar points if i finish them too.

that wasn't too bad for finishing up the last morsels from vacation, now was it?

except for two, itty bitty more things.

i had brought a couple recipes with me to my mom's, just in case i was asked to cook. and i really noticed for the first time that some foods chuck and i eat regularly, my family had never eaten. like jambalya (which adam made very well) and anything curry.

i had a leftover food dream from my mission in sweden that i finally fulfilled - banana curry pizza. sounds really gross, but it's sooooo good. mostly going off memory, i took a basic curry sauce recipe, threw in mushrooms, chicken, and banana and put it on a pizza crust. there was only one hitch: i forgot i was using my mother's measuring cups, which are english. while the recipe was metric. oops. no wonder the sauce was more watery than normal. but still good. my mom even liked it.

and, last of all, next time i buy a house, i'm buying one with stairs. my mom had us in the attic room, so we were up and down 2 flights of stairs all day. oj. my thighs may have been feeling it for the first couple days.

quick n dirty

2008-01-21T21:57:00.000-09:00

over two weeks have gone by since we got back from MA, and you'd think all those vacation knitting photos would be up and blogged already. but no. i've been working at NLUR (an archaeology company) since i got back, doing (horribly boring) office organization tasks, and something about an actual 8 hour job is throwing off my blogging mojo. the first week we were back was really busy somehow, and at the end of it i finally put away my clothes that i had unpacked but left on the piano bench. this last week i finally sorted through all the mail and accumulated trip junk and cleaned my kitchen counter off.

with that mess at home, i suppose it's no great surprise that the blog is a bit behind too. if i had nothing to say, that wouldn't be a problem. but of course, the whole catch-22 thing is that when things are happening, they take up the time you would have blogged about them. and when nothing's happening, you have plenty of time, but not so much to say.

so i figured the only way i could finally get through this was to throw pictures and thoughts at you quick and dirty, like, just to get them out of my head (and shorten my drafts list). not that i'm particularly good at quick and dirty, but i'll do my best. it may still be a mother of a post, just so you're forewarned.

while i was home, i got some pics of those handknits i gave away (to post on ravelry, of course). some of those are unreachable (some wristwarmers, hats, the first pair of socks i knitted, potholders), given to people i'm not in touch with anymore. but i tried to get at least one picture of each item. some of them aren't very good pictures, and i meant to get re-takes and close-ups of a couple. of course i forgot. at least i've got the one!

my mom had a few potholders (all crocheted). the first two used up random swedish cotton,

and then i had to make up for the randomness with a proper set. a couple of scarves. the first is the obligatory learning to knit scarf. i actually wanted it at the time, but of course never wore it - i'm just not a scarf gal, so i gave it to my sister, who is. the second one's hers, using the saxon braid from a barbara walker treasury, in some wool-acrylic blend. it's from back in the day when i thought ribbing was queen and hadn't met seed stitch yet, so the edges roll a bit.

speaking of rolling edges, here's a shawl i made for my mom. threw together a bunch of stitch patterns and didn't swatch them together before starting. after a few rows i realized it would flow better if i changed a few details (like the ribbing on the edges, the switch from purl to stockinette background) but i was too lazy to rip it out. my mom still wears it, and that speck to the right is this awesome celtic brooch i got to go with it. alas, the close up of it is one of the pictures never taken, along with a non-blurry close-up of the braid.and, let's see, a couple hats. the first (mine) is crocheted and very warm, although i should have made the ties longer and still think about it but never do. the second is sara's (modelled much more amusingly by my mother) in some weird sparkly yarn she picked up. it's a bit heavy so she doesn't wear the hat much.

and plain socks for my mom
last, but not least, is the first sweater i knitted. (another one i should have got a better shot of) the sleeves were even, the front and back matched up - i may have been a little paranoid about that with all the horror stories of ill-fitting hand knit sweaters. the seams i crocheted together cuz the mattress stitch looked way too intimidating, and they came out lovely. i was quite proud of it.except for one thing (you knew there had to be something, right?). the ease. i made it to fit, and it did, except it should have been a loose fit. so for the style, it doesn't look quite right. i had given it to sara, cuz style-wise it fit her better. but she likes a closer fit, so i took it back. good thing too, cuz where ever she had it, the moths found it. now i can protect it and look at it from time to time and feel like i can knit well.

whew. now that we got the ghosts of knitting past exorcised, we can move on to the present. ish.

for the whole first week in MA, knitting time was lost in the shuffle. after that i made an effort to get in at least a half hour a day, and that really took effort. the hederas i had expected to finish fairly quickly, but that sure didn't happen. i took a shot of chuck's sweater, with 9 of 11 pattern repeats done on the back. since arkansas, the end has been so close i could almost (literally) touch it. but it was at the horror movie stage, where you knit and knit and knit without gaining an inch. finally on sunday the 13th i broke out of it, finished, and put the stitches on hold.

new year's day, chuck and i went to lucy's, to paw through her stash and pick out my prize. which she very kindly offered to spin and ship later, if a fiber rather than a yarn jumped out at me. she had so many different rovings and yarns, it was almost hard to pick. but as soon as i saw this, i wanted it.
ooooooooooo. as far as colors go, i tend towards dark colors. in my family, any color is good as long as it's black. maroon, forest greens, royal purple, and charcoal grey are my favs, with a horrible weakness for sky blue. lately a deep, mellow yellow has been creeping up on me (which i blame solely on sweden - their flag and tendency to have blue/yellow combos). this fiber just grabbed me with the deep blue and lighter sky blue highlights. i think it was goat angora, so silky soft. lucy spun up a little baby hank for me then and there (with a drop spindle - oh so tempting to try! but i resisted) and that's what you see.

the question that rolls around my head now is, what pattern to show it off in. . . . ironically most of my first projects i designed myself, with the help of a stitch dictionary, figuring out the math and what not. but now most of my projects are from patterns. there's just so so many cool patterns out there, and somehow it's like reading a library book versus one i own. mine are going to be here forever (or at least as long as i am) so there's no press to read them, but the library books have to go back, so they always jump to the front of the line. i've looked through my ravelry queue, but nothing seems special enough for this yarn-to-be. luckily i've got time to think on it.

our visit with lucy was actually one of the highlights of our trip. maybe just cuz it was towards the end, and the never-ending bustle of my mom's house was starting to wear, but we stayed a good 2 hours, enjoying the peace. lucy's 2 children were all but invisible (thanks in part to her husband, but still) we definitely hadn't planned on staying so long, but we really appreciated the peacefulness. more than just the quiet, we felt our souls relax. thank you lucy!

the FFF shawl has been misbehaving itself (increasing my desire to call it the F-ing shawl, but i digress), misbehaving horribly. according to my schedule, it ought to have been done by the end of christmas vacation. ought. but i ran out of yarn on the flights to MA. the 2 original skeins ought to have been enough for the summer shawlette i originally planned to make, and i was just hoping beyond hope that they would be enough for the feather and fan shawl too. i knit furiously the week before leaving, hoping to determine if i needed more, and i had this sinking sort of feeling that i ought to buy another skein, Just To Be Safe. but that week was busy too, and on the way to the airport, i sunk a little more, realizing i hadn't bought more yarn. gulp.

so of course i ran out, meaning i had to carry a project i couldn't work on for 2 1/2 weeks. *sigh* once i was back, i got yarn, hoping for the same dye lot (it's a small store, i didn't think it was an impossible hope). apparently hope and the FFF shawl do not go together. i got a different dye lot, which i can't tell apart form the original. shrug. i won't turn my nose up at a bit of luck.

especially since, with this pattern, i'm needing lots of it. lace has not been a problem for me. keeping track of the pattern reps and increases and whatnot has been a piece o' cake. until this shawl. i don't know how many times i've ripped back rows because i got off somwhere. the feather and fan increases by one stitch in each pattern row, so it's never the same twice. after joining the new skein, i discovered the count was off and ignored it for a good week. take that. seeing as it's so far off my internal You Should Be Done By Now scale, i picked it up again. and ripped back about half of it. to pattern repeat 5. *sigh* i'm back up to 9 again, and so far it seems to be behaving much better. i can almost join that last skein again.

there was a question about how our luggage fared. we wondered that too, all day saturday as we magically went from one flight to another.

we did ask the seattle supervisor, who didn't know how to check, if our luggage made it home, but didn't have time to ask anyone else until we got to fairbanks. where we discovered our bags were only checked through seattle (way to go american airlines. again.) so i guess we could have got a change of clothes, if we had only known. luckily our bags got on the next flight to fairbanks and we had them sunday night. my books didn't fare quite as well as they normally do, but everything was there and not broken.

in our first busy week back home, we babysat seth who's walking as long as he doesn't want to get somewhere in a hurry. then he just says screw it, and crawls.

and the knitting group got together. 2 new people showed up - and none of the others. one was a new learner, and the other was looking for inspiration. hehehe. i introduced her to ravelry. she won't ever lack for inspiration again.

cold

2008-01-15T20:41:00.000-09:00

the other day i walked out of work, i'm not sure what the temperature was - around -20 F or so, and those tiny bits of fluff that passes for snow here were dancing around. i though, cool it's snowing! until i got to the parking lot, looked up and saw a clear sky. totally clear. and realized it was exhaust snow. ew.

yesterday the temp in fairbanks was -39 F (-39 C). at my mom's house it was +31 F (-1 C) and snowing (real snow, not exhaust snow). that's a 60 degree difference, people. why did we come back? today the we went soaring up to -10 F this morning and are sitting at +1 as i write - with real snow. up 40 degrees like it was nothing. imagine if that was from 40F to 80F.

-20 and below chuck calls "booger freezing weather." cuz you go outside and with your first breath, the whole inside of your nose freeezes up and you can practically feel each nose hair. it's kind of weird. past 20 below, you can't really feel the difference, except in how much faster you lose feeling in your extremities. like 10 seconds compared to 30.

other weird things happen below -30. like the tires in your car actually freeze a little flat when you park, and thump like you're running over hitmen when you start driving again. and the shocks freeze up, so you get a pretty good idea what a horse and buggy felt like. and, at least in the archaeology office, static electricity starts jumping out at you when you least expect it. i walked through a metal doorway and got zapped. a couple times today i shocked my mouse and it stopped working for a few seconds.

one thing i realized (besides that i actually had to wear my coat) was that i'm needing a good pair of gloves. and leg warmers or at least knee socks wouldn't hurt either. so i've been thinking . . . .do i have anything in my stash that'll fit the bill?

the great adventure of 2008

2008-01-14T22:06:00.000-09:00

it all started at 4.15 am, friday jan 4. we woke up after 4 hours of sleep and went to the airport. at the gate, they said our flight was delayed because "the pilot couldn't make it on time." i guess his alarm clock was broken. so we got transferred to another flight through dallas - and we got first class! whoo-hoo! (actually we used our miles for first class tickets anyway cuz all the coach seats were gone, but the hartford-chicago leg didn't have first class available. we were just glad to get it on that leg).

the first thing anyone worries about with flight changes is luggage, but we saw it go on our plane. so everything was cool. until the dallas flight was delayed an hour to fix the air conditioning. in january. i mean, at least call it the heat. we landed at the same time our connecting flight left (because whoever re-routed us didn't leave more than an hour between flights. duh. i book my own flights and know to leave more time than that.)

that's where the trip started to go wrong. the flights to seattle from dallas were overbooked (plus they cancelled a flight, which helped loads) but we got routed through orange county, CA and ended up in seattle at the time we should have been getting our luggage in fairbanks. trying to get seats from seattle to fairbanks was a nightmare. all of a sudden, fairbanks was a happening place that everyone wanted to get to. all the flights to anchorage and fairbanks were overbooked, with standbys.

from dallas on, we tried in every airport to get seats home. our tickets were through alaska air, but the chicago-hartford leg was through american air. they got us routed through to seattle, but they don't fly to alaska. we ping-ponged back and forth between the airlines a bit, most notably in orange county where we discovered american air was responsible to get us home - or take care of us in the mean time. gina, at alaskan air, let us know that as she very cheerfully did absolutely nothing for us. all the other people we talked to spent a good amount of time clicking through options on the computer for us. but in the long run, they didn't get us any farther than seattle.

where we were very tired and getting frustrated. to go from first class to stranded was not very fun. re-telling our story to every ticket agent we talked to was getting old too. the last alaska air person we talked to was very sympathetic (and gave us meal vouchers!) but said we couldn't fly standby that night. apparently, if you want to fly standby today, you have to be booked on a flight for today. and in dallas, somehow chuck's reservation to fairbanks was cancelled, and i had 2. hmmm..........so i could have gone standby, but not chuck. (since the flight was overbooked, they couldn't just tranfer chuck's reservation back. although why they couldn't have given him my extra one we still haven't figured out yet).

yeah. it was a mess. we went out to talk to someone at the american air desk, and he did the 15-20 minute look through any possible reservations. the earliest one was in a week. a whole 7 days before there was a flight with space on it. while we had work to get back to, and no clothes. all anyone could do was shake their head and say sorry.

by that point, we were dumbfounded. american air did give us a hotel room for the night, and meal vouchers. chuck was half-seriously suggesting we buy a truck and drive home.

a night's sleep helped take the edge off our desperation. luckily for me, i had (finally) finished the second hedera in orange county.so i at least had clean socks.

after (a free) breakfast at the hotel, we walked over to the airport (does that mean i can say i've been to seattle? airports don't count to me, but this was outside) and started story time again. the american airlines desk couldn't do much, except book us tickets for thursday (we gained a whole day there!) and send us to alaska air to get on standby. we talked to a supervisor, who got us on standby (apparently that same day standby thing was bunk. arg.) the standby list was huge for all the flights, but at least we were on.

a flight to anchorage was boarding so the supervisor walked us over to cut through the lines (though it was early enough there weren't any). that fast track landed us in the special security line, with the pat down and looking through our carry ons. i showed my socks off to the security chick, who said her daughter knits too. cool.

as we got to the gate, they had finished boarding and were starting to work on the standby list. a woman there said she'd been waiting three days for an anchorage flight. *shudder* we had visions of living in the airport, languishing in standby until thursday. the woman working the desk was obviously stressed - it might have been the small standby crowd hanging on her every word, waiting for their name to fall from her lips. boarding finished, and she sent the crowd on its way to the next gate. chuck was antsy antsy while we were waiting, wanting to go ask the lady where we were on the list, but i convinced him to wait till she was done.

the crowd cleared, we went up, and before we said a word, she asked, are you on standby? then she asked for both our last names, and said follow me. we rushed behind her to the door and were on the plane - in first class no less. it happened so fast i didn't even see her name. but you, short hispanic lady with glasses working that 11.40 flight from seattle to anchorage, you were a miracle. thank you thank you thank you!

in anchorage, they had to get our flight coupons - we hadn't even had time to hand those over before we were on that flight. alaska air had us booked on a fairbanks flight leaving within a half hour, and we were home just 24 hours late - not bad compared to the week it could have been!

we ended up not even using any of those meal vouchers. home never looked so good.

one thing i decided - i am so buying one of those silly little carry on suitcases. for a change of clothes, just in case. cuz you never know when adventure might strike.

pure bliss

2008-01-01T21:43:00.000-09:00

there's so many good things about going back east.

almost always the very first one i think of is this

my car. in alaska, i drive a jeep. i'm happy with it, it does what it should and is good for camping trips too. but it's not "my car." just driving it makes me smile. a 74 pontiac catalina, it's got rear wheel drive, super light steering, class and a V8 engine. vroom vroom. one of these days we'll drive it up to alaska and keep me smiling year round.

then there's real grinders. not the subway kind you could make at home if you weren't too lazy to, but real 12 (or 16) inch ones with choices like eggplant parmesan, italian sausage, meatball. . . .mmmm. we had some but they disappeared way too fast to take pics.

along with the real italian food iscannolis. adam got some for new year's. i'm surprised any lasted till today.

although i don't spend as much time with it as i'd like, i'm always glad to see my piano again.i don't play as well as i used to (since i play much less often), but pulling music from the keys wraps a spell around me. like i'm in a world of my own where things become crystal clear. sometimes when no one else is home, i play and listen to the music and the silence, and feel as if i were praying. and hearing the answers better.

last, but definitely not least, is thisreal snow. the kind you scoop up and it's already a snowball in your hands. snow that accumulates 3 inches in a couple hours overnight, not over 3 days. i love it. there should be more of it.

ojojojojoj

2007-12-29T23:32:00.000-09:00

so busy so busy. even more so now than when i first started writing this post, oh 15 days ago. one sunday i was caught up, and then we had a week to get ready for MA. and a bunch of holiday festivities.

we went to the north pole ice park with a couple from church. the fairbanks ice park is usually in march, but this year north pole decided to do one too. i don't know if it was the time of year, or the fact that it's in north pole, but the theme was christmas (the fairbanks one always has a theme - last year it was sea stuff). and not only was there santa claus stuff, but several nativity scenes. very good for getting in the holiday mood. chuck even got some good shots in.

nowhere but alaska would you find a sculpture of santa riding a salmon, or a reindeer on a harley. i like how there's always a few life-sized sculptures that you can sit on (even if the pic of me on the camel was a bit blurry). and the slide they had was way fun. they even provided sleds to go down it. whoo-hoo!

then we had two bank parties, a cookie swap, and christmas dinner with chuck's family. so tuesday was the only free night we had. craziness. somewhere in there we finished decorating the tree.
not bad for a fake one, eh? while the camera was out, i shot some of my favorite christmas decorations.

a straw pig and straw julbock (christmas goat) from sweden. *sigh* i miss swedish christmas. maybe it's just the difference in culture, but i miss their traditions. i weasel in whatever i can though *wink*
like our advent candles.

knitting did not get much time in before we left. the most i got done was at work, which meant the hedera socks. we (chuck put in his 2 cents too) settled on a heel flap, it seemed best suited to the lace pattern. the toes always seems to come fast after the heel. before i knew it i was decreasing. but when i tried it on after a couple decrease rows, i noticed this
normally i start the toe when the foot reaches the base of my big toe. and this was a bit past it. so i think i frogged back 2 lace repeats, finished the toe and it fits perfect.
yay!! one more to go. the lace on this pattern really stretches. i wasn't sure it would stretch enough, but it does. the second one i cast on in transit, and right now it's past the heel on the home stretch to the toes.

the FFF shawl is hibernating for christmas vacation. in the bustle before we left, i didn't quite make it to the yarn store for an extra skein of yarn. just in case i needed it. i wanted a shorter shawl (since i started out with the summer shawlette as my chosen pattern - remember?) and since the yardage was good for that pattern i thought, hey it should be enough for this one right? hope doesn't kill you i guess, but it doesn't give you those extra hundred yards either.

that's my only complaint so far about stahman's shawls - no solid yardage requirements. her only advice is to measure etc. the woman made a couple shawls in each design - couldn't she have written down how much she used? i mean, she's got the same brand yarn for every shawl, just tossing in the yardage, even in small print, would have been nice. i wouldn't have minded. so while flying, i finished my second skein. and wouldn't ya know it, it's not 15 inches long yet. augh. so i just have to really really hope that no one's bought that yarn since i did and maybe the same dye lot will still be there. except if i'd known i wouldn't be able to work on it the whole trip, i'da left it home to finish after. since i'll have to anyway.

based in how much knitting i did in arkansas, i maybe went a little overboard in how many projects i brought with me. i definitely forgot how time disappears with my family. our first week was busy busy getting ready for christmas and doing last minute shopping (all the way to christmas eve). usually my shopping's done early, but with traveling we still had a few things to find. but you know what? christmas eve just might be the key to stress free shopping. there wasn't a grouchy person in sight. shoppers and workers were pleasant and lines weren't too awful either. i would have expected otherwise, especially with the east coast reputation for attitude.

so between family and christmas (and driving. i never realized how much car knitting i got done because chuck was driving. i like driving but miss the knitting), i think i pulled out knitting for the first time.....sunday. um yeah. so chuck's sweater? not getting done. i'm determined to finsh at least the hederas cuz it would be ur-pathetic not to (ur would be the swedish equivalent of uber i guess). but my clessidras and charade socks will not be seeing much, if any, action. bummer.

on the other hand, seeing my family has been fun. there's just something about family jokes that nobody else gets. compared to our tree, my mom's seemed a bit straggly and bare of ornaments, but somehow lights and presents transform everything.
giving and receiving is always fun. a lot of our gifts have jokes or meaning to them, so we appreciate them more for that. we didn't take very many pictures this year like we usually do. since we were kids we had this tradition of opening presents one at a time so we could see what everyone got, and then playing for a bit. no matter how few toys we had, christmas always stretched out all day. sometimes it drags a bit, but mostly i like it. seeing reactions is fun, and enjoying what you get takes away some of the greed and commercialism i think.

my brother adam got me this t-shirt
which i had got my dad. hehe. i wonder where i got my squirrel-hating tendencies from?

of the few pics i have, i liked seeing miah's reaction to his rubberband ?oozie? it's a 5-shooter.

we gave him a ball of rubberbands in his stocking, of course. two part preseents are the best cuz you get the first part and wonder half the day, what the freak do i need rubberbands for?

shela squeals of joy at her socks were very gratifying. she said they felt " soft and comfortable." then yesterday she asked me for another pair. hmmm. . . . . maybe handmade socks wasn't a good gift idea after all *wink* and the thujas i made went to my pops. my mom seemed to like the washclothes she got too
although they weren't made for her head.

my niece serenity got a new doll. she curled up next to it and was out in less than 2 minutes.
aw.

i used to be schizo but we're (not) ok now

2007-12-07T16:35:00.000-09:00

i guess getting up those thanksgiving posts wore me out, cuz i've missed almost a week now.

tuesday our knit group met. we're still only a few people each time, but there's starting to be regulars who are really interested. having people to talk knitting with is so much fun. one lady, who's more of a spinner than a knitter, said her daughter asked her where she was going. after saying she was going to knit with the neighbors, her (teenage) daughter said, "it's confirmed, you're officially in the old lady group now." except the spinning lady was the oldest one there. *giggle* which she was going to be sure to tell her daughter.

sunday night i cast on xela's second sock, and got a few hours in on monday, putting me herethen i got past the heel at knit group, and wed morning i went with chuck to the doctor. military doctors, so it was hurry up and wait. by the time we left, i needed only another half hour to finish the sock. whoo-hoo!!all done, all done. i love it. in less than a week. i'll have to make more sport-weight socks in the future. i just wonder how they fit into shoes. there wasn't much yarn left either :)all this month i've been a good girl, only working on a few projects rather than my normal uncounted mass. finishing things faster is nice, but i'm starting to get itchy hands. my ravelry queue is gowing in leaps and bounds as i find more i want to make. any mention of sock yarns has me surfing the net wanting to buy something (for all those queued projects of course). there was a little bazaar here last weekend, and a local was selling alpalca yarn. oh, it was so nice and soft, in natural cream and charcoal (and brown but i can live without that). that was soooooo tempting, but i resisted. sweater patterns keep calling my name. finally i realized my project schizophrenia was too repressed and needs to come out. so i'm going to dig through my sock yarn and start some of those sock projects.

now that xela's socks are done, it's time for the hederas to get done. i'm adding to the leg, and thinking about a short-row heel. here's where it's at right now maybe 2 lace repeats were added to it today (pre-picture). after no calls all week, i got an all day science teacher job. quizzes and babysitting, with some ~~pain in the butt~~ energetic kids. not much knitting gets done with those kinds of jobs.

and the FFF is started again, after frogging and re-swatching. football and faroese shawls may not be a good combination though. we were watching the patriots nearly lose to the ravens, and i kept losing track of my stitches. finally i gave up and devoted myself to agonizing over the offense's bad blocking. since frogging it, i am not nearly as enthused about it as i was. part of the problem is (da dum) gauge. i like my lace a bit tighter than most gauge recommendations, so i think my next lace project i will pick a sportweight yarn maybe.

our christmas tree is slowly working its way up to fully decorated. it's up, and has lights on it, but no ornaments yet. we want to do them all at once, i think, but haven't come across a big enough chunk of time yet. our fake tree has fake berries on it too, which actually don't look as bad as we thought they would (we didn't realize it had berries till we got it home - oops). my very favorite lights are these candle-wannabes

we had those when i was a kid and i love the way they bubble.

tonight we're going to listen to some military band play. with a christmas theme (i think? i hope). not bad for a date night.

there's a downside to everything

2007-12-01T14:07:00.000-09:00

so the FFF that looked kid-size? it probably was. cuz it sure didn't fit my neck after i put the bottom on three circulars and tried it on. which means. . . frogging. *sigh* the worst part is, since i log all my time on knitwars, i know exactly how many hours of work i'm ripping out. ouch. big ouch. otherwise i could be more diplomatic about it.

we found a cheap fake tree last night, without lights. do you know how hard it is now to find trees that don't come with lights? geez. so monday night we'll be setting 'er up and decorating. fun fun! i love decorating. when i was a kid we'd always listen to these old records of christmas carols, and those have always been my favorites that i think of as "the" christmas songs. luckily i've found lots of them so we can listen to them as we decorate. and i found candles that fit my advents holder! yay!

tonight we're babysitting step-grandbrat seth otherwise we'd probably start decorating tonight. after the last couple days catching up on bills and blogging and reading blogs and unpacking and doing laundry and most importantly not knitting, i have got an itch to knit like you wouldn't believe. but with a kid wandering around, i don't know how likely that is tonight.

my library book pile has been out of control lately. actually, it's more that i haven't been reading as much rather than checking out mountains of books (which i have done on occasion). so i'm trying to whittle it down before christmas. i'll keep a couple for the trip, hopefully paperbacks. our library has a surprisingly good selection, but most of them are hardcovers. ugh. how am i supposed to fit those in my back pocket? in our stack of mail was promises to keep, an update on jilly by charles de lint. i'm reading wild magic right now, and need to finish the amber spyglass. chuck already finished it (!) and started on a wrinkle in time. he's been testing out this reading thing, and i try to read the books (again) with him so we can talk about them.

this morning, (my brother) miah woke us up, cuz he found out what his first assignment (after he graduates in may) in the airforce would be: guam. which makes his clearance top secret, so he had to get our updated address. the military actually sends people out to ask about him. i always want to make fun of things like that, but they're so deadly, deadly serious i can't. what's cool is, guam was chuck's first assignment, 20+ years ago in the navy. so we'll try and dig out some old pics to take home for miah. all the traveling he'll get to do makes me jealous and gets my feet twitching.

whew

2007-11-30T00:15:00.000-09:00

i'm feeling more caught up now, but there's still some stuff left. *sigh*

last night i went to discuss the count of monte cristo at book club. i read huge chunks of it while flying, a couple hours today, and finished with 10 minutes to spare. the story flowed really well, so it was fast, interesting reading. but the end of the story really ruined the book for me. the main part of the book is focused on dantes getting revenge on the people who set him up, but you can't do that sort of stuff without it affecting your soul. yet there's only one short conversation with his old love (who he doesn't hook back up with unlike the movie, and the only thing close to real life) where he realizes he isn't the avenging hand of god and that's it. he's all done with the bitterness like it never happened, except he's 20 or so years older, and goes off into the sunset (literally) with a hot young chick. the wrap-up could have given more meaning to the whole story, but was shallow instead. all the bad guys were ruined, the good people got out of the traps somehow, and it was all la-di-da fine at the end. crazy how the last pages of a book, or last 5 minutes of a film can change your whole opinion of it.

for next month we picked 2 books: the ultimate gift (which i never heard of) and all rivers run to the sea (elie wiesel's memiors). the last i've been wanting to read so this'll be good motivation.

speaking of motivation, i haven't had any at all for seaming those blanket squares. so that's one of my goals in the next 2 weeks. to at least start seaming and get as close to done as i can.

we've decided to buy a fake tree (yuck!) because we won't be in town to make sure a real one stays alive, but we want the fun of our tree and the christmas spirit. we had planned to go tomorrow to find one, but this morning chuck was all excited and didn't want to wait the one day. so tonight for date night we'll be finding a tree. and i need to find some candles to fit in this awesome birch bark advent's holder. my friend lasse in sweden gave it to me, and it's handmade (although not by him), so it has cool memories. me and chuck are doing little advent's presents this year. one each week, with the dollar amount slowly going up. it's kind of fun. i love finding special presents, that mean something but don't have to cost much of anything. the memories and meaning are what make them precious.

my family has always done the list thing, make a list of what you want. but we rarely get anything from the list, especially as we get older. it's almost like the list is misleading, so the person won't know what you're getting them. i love trying to guess what the coolest present would be, finding out details without the person knowing i am, and keeping it secret right up to the end. that's what i love about christmas.

how do you all celebrate christmas and pick presents?

borta bra men hemma bäst

2007-11-29T13:28:00.000-09:00

sure is good to be home.

our night at the hotel was not very restful. the hallway outside our room never seemed to quiet down, and that plus anxiousness for our early flight seemed to keep waking us up. we were wide awake before the alarm even went off at 4 am. we got up, made sure everything was in the suitcases, and then chuck looked at our itinerary. and yeah. the 6 am flight was actually at 8. oops. our flight home from massachusetts in dec is actually the 6 am one.

i felt like a genius all day. that's the earliest i've ever been at the airport in my life, international flights included. maybe too much flying so close together isn't a good idea.

today while taking some pics for my blog posts a minor miracle occured: i finally got a good picture of the thujas! yay! it was about time.and look how far i've come on the irish moss backi'm so going to finish it by the end of our christmas vacation. as long as chuck can wear it this winter, i'll be happy.

so much to catch up on! i was feeling some serious internet deprivation symptoms there. chuck's sister did have internet. so i could check my email every couple days and keep those numbers down, but no time for anything else. man did i miss talking to my family on the weekend, and reading blogs. it'll take days just to catch up on posts. the up side of that is, i'm whittling down the list of blogs i read to the ones i really enjoy.

blogland had a pleasant surprise for me too: i won a contest on lucy's blog, celebrating her blogiversary. i was going to link to the contest while it was still happening, but that was the day i left, and yeah. i didn't get that post up. so i get some exciting handspun. whoo-hoo!

paying bills and balancing the checkbook is always fun to do after a trip too. not. and we've only got 2 weeks before we leave for MA, so we have to recover quick so we can get ready for that, along with all the christmassy things happening. it's going to be crazy. but the best thing about visiting my family? they've got internet, man. thank goodness. i don't think i could handle another internet-free trip.

so excuse me while i go get lost in the virtual world for a bit.

traveling tuesday

2007-11-27T22:25:00.000-09:00

today i finally remembered to take pictures of the landscape. i admired it all week, i guess we have to be grateful i remembered pictures at all.arkansas is one of those states i always thought of as being in the middle and flat. where chuck's parents live, it's actually very hilly. rolling hills with steep declines into those famous hollers. and they have winding roads that would make western mass proud.today i learned why: the ozarks. duh. that i should have figured out for myself. but they're only in northern arkansas, and everything flattens out towards little rock.

(these obviously overlap a bit - guess i only got the stitch function to work halfway on the camera) we were down in the middle of those hilly folds there. that would be awful territory for a survey. and while i'm thinking of archaeology, in those boxes of pictures and stuff chuck went through were 2 ziplocs chock-full of rocks. most of them were water eroded and smooth (you know i had to look at them just cuz). but one of them was guess what? an artifact. it was a utilized flake, with a clear bulb of percussion, a bit of cortex on the edge, and use wear on the one edge. *sigh* the worst part was, they hadn't picked it up on purpose, his parents had just collected rocks on a cross country trip from arkansas to alaska. so it could have come from anywhere. do you know how hard i look for those things? and they didn't even know they found one. *sigh*

today was a hot day again. day 1 was hot, and day 7 is hot, with cool, perfect days in between. at least from our point of view. today was like 65. i haven't seen that for months. we didn't bring our coats, but if we had we wouldn't have worn them anyway. we went into a restaurant, and the temps were easing down but it still felt nice out, and we both had short sleeves on. the restaurant chick asks us "where are y'alls coats at?" and while i rarely play on the alaska thing (chuck does it all the time, especially now that we live in north pole) all i could think of to say was "back home in alaska"

did she ever stare at us. she must have thought i was joking, and once she realized i wasn't, didn't know what to do about that. specially after i told her it was nice out. it's all a matter of perspective i guess.

we did drive past chuck's old swimming hole where he cliff dived. this is the practice jumpthis is the real thingnice huh? you couldn't get me up there for a million dollars. the scenery was beautiful, but it still can't compare to what we found a bit further down the road .

my very very favorite place we drove through today wasthey had signs to let you know it was coming over 15 miles out. not sure why cuz there wasn't much there. but i did wonder if andy would want to move there once i told him about it.

bored out of my mind

2007-11-26T22:00:00.000-09:00

xela's broadripple i finished friday night. i tried it on (and it totally should not have fit my huge foot) and it was about the right foot length for me. so yeah. i ripped back an inch or so and finished with just a tad of yarn left.saturday we went to branson so we could get off the couch. talking to family is fun, but the tv always on in the background disturbs me, and after a while both of us needed to get up and move around. you know it's gotta be bad if we're shopping for fun.

we went through old branson, which had random little shops. we found an antique store, and those we could spend all day in. you just never know what treasures, or what junk, you'll find. we got this rug

to replace this rug (see the pinky red bits? they're not my friends. i won't miss them)

sunday i got to experience a southern baptist church. chuck's sister linda invited us to go with her. i was expecting lots of music and some pulpit banging and finger pointing, but the service was rather tame. the congregation was pretty small, and about half of them were the choir. a couple of the songs they sang we knew, and the sermon was about moral responsibility in politics. an unexpected topic, and chuck's sister and brother in law were more surprised and disappointed than we were. and had a harder time following the pastor than we did. *giggle*

after another afternoon of hanging around, we were really feeling dummified and headed out to springfield MO on monday. our two favorite words for the last days of the trip were dummified and stupified. joking about it was all that kept us sane. even though we were in a different city, the shopping bored us cuz we usually only shop for specific items. we did find a coat for chuck though. and a flea market antique store. apparently the "flea market" bit makes all the difference between mostly cool old stuff and random new junk. this store didn't have much to recommend it.

our total weekend accumulation was still pretty bad. here's all our loot

we picked up a couple huge mugs, a nautical shadow box and a lighthousefor chuck, a marble container for who knows what and a chinese style candle holder (it's a bit hard to see to the left).
we went in this cool cuckoo clock store, imported direct from germany. chuck likes cuckoo clocks, but wouldn't let me buy him one. so we settled for some wood cutout ornaments and a little cuckoo clock for the kitchen.

although the paint job reminds me more of sweden. also for the kitchen was a cloth calendar like my grandma used to have

in a quilt store we nabbed a king size quilt. it's even reversible too!

and man, did we need that king size. chuck is like the velcro king or something. anytime he moves in bed at night the blankets go with him. not too hard to live with in the summer, but the winter is another thing. so hopefully the extra width will keep me covered.

sometimes chuck has no understanding of moderation. they had some nice blue and yellow checkered material that i liked (the color combo reminds me of sweden). he kept asking if i liked it, and then just grabbed up almost everything he could find in it. see?

he got the tablecloth, the napkins, the napkin holders (same material with buttons), the reversible placemats, and a bread basket. he spoils me rotten.

despite our haul, we're antsy to get going. tomorrow we're leaving for little rock cuz our flight's at 6.30 am wednesday. chuck said a week was all he could take at home, and i can see why. there's probably more to do in the summertime, but right now shopping is the most exciting thing to do.

i got lots of knitting in over the weekend, mostly on the FFF with a little irish moss thrown in. i'm trying to work on it at least a couple hours a day, and it's gratifying to see the inches slowly add up. chuck's mom asked me to make her a sweater. at first i wasn't sure she meant it, but once i started asking her what she wanted she got pretty excited. she also had definite ideas about what she wanted, so it wasn't just a whim. that's good, cuz i'd hate to spend all that time (and money) on a hand knit that wouldn't be appreciated. this is where ravelry comes in super handy, cuz of course i didn't have books or patterns with me. so we looked a (very) little bit and found a pattern she liked - the hedgerow coat from interweave fall 2007. which i have! yay! looks like a fun pattern too, so i won't mind knitting it. the best thing is there's no rush - she even said i could take 2 years on it! i think i can make it in that time frame ;)

once i figured out she was serious, i started asking her about details, like yarn colors and design elements like cables and whatnot. she kept saying it didn't matter and i could pick. like as if i could know all the little things she likes. having a little experience in that, i started making suggestions and got very definite no's to most of them. so not only do we have a pattern, we have a color and some idea of yarn requirements.

chuck spent some time looking through boxes of family pictures and newspaper clippings, and i started the count of monte cristo. it's a fat old book, and i have to finish it by thursday night for book club. i've got through 200 of 600 (abridged!!)pages so far. the book's size is imposing, but once i started reading the pages flew. not as wordy as i expected for the time period, or for serials being paid by the word or line.

a lazy day

2007-11-23T22:33:00.000-09:00

no black friday for us. i have nightmare memories of my mother waking up at ungodly hours to crowd through filene's for an extra 5% off. somehow it never seemed worth it.

we spent the day chillin with chuck's parents after waking up very late (we were up till 2.30 with chuck's mom). we're not adapting to the time change very well at all.

Xela's first sock is almost done, but i'm not sure i'l have enough yarn now. i made the leg a bit longer than specified, cuz i found that my pair were just a hair too short. even though they're not falling down, i feel like i should be pulling them up all the time. hopefully they're not too long for xela!

i worked on the FFF again, and got through the yoke (shoulder increases) and started the feather and fan pattern. it's looking pretty good, but i'm not sure about the size of the neck. i never made one of these before, so i'm a bit uncertain, but it almost looks kid-sized. since it's neck down i can try it on, but i want a bit more length to make sure.

chuck's parents are so funny when i switch projects. they've seen all 3 of them now, but when i switch their eyes get all big and they look at me in utter amazement, like they can't believe i'm doing another project. or like i did a magic trick and they're not sure i really was knitting on something different a minute ago.

we went to branson MO looking for some christmas light display. branson is like a mini-vegas, that i never heard of before. it's got a little strip and lots of shows. and traffic. first we couldn't find the display, and then once we found signs for it we missed the turns, so all we ended up doing was driving up and down the strip a couple times. i got to cuddle with chuck the whole time, so i didn't mind it a bit.

my favorite thing from the strip was a restaurant called the plantation. seriously. and i couldn't help but wonder - do they only have black waiters? cuz the word plantation just calls up images of mammy in the kitchen and the overseer whipping slaves out in the field.

we did talk a bit about racism in the car, cuz chuck's dad, well. he says he's not prejudiced, and then says he only ever knew 2 good blacks and tells us their names. i've always figured if you have to go around telling people you're not prejudiced, you've gotta be. every once in a while chuck's dad makes a derogatory comment and it shocks me. haven't we figured out yet that we're all just people? we'll talk to him about how every group has good and bad mixed in it, whether you're looking at race, sex, ethnicity, country of origin, economics or what have you. and he agrees. and then says they're all bad. *sigh* what can you do?

and a tip on Southern cooking: when they say fried eggs, they mean it. in at least half a cup of oil. somehow my tablespoon of butter doesn’t seem as bad now.

you can get anything you want at alice's restaurant

2007-11-22T22:45:00.000-09:00

i hope everyone took a second to listen to alice’s restaurant today. that's my favoritest thanksgiving tradition. and remember, if you’re ever in a difficult situation, just walk into the shrink (wherever you are) and sing a bar of alice’s restaurant and walk out - it might not help any but you’ll laugh :D

oh, and look what i found while getting links (but be warned: it's 18 minutes long!) bummer embedding was disabled.

meeting all the in laws today went pretty good. chuck's the oldest, then comes linda. she was there with her husband gary.
all bad pictures are chuck's fault cuz he doesn't check to make sure they come out ok. sorry linda!his brother john had long hair to everyone's (but mine, cuz hey, i never met the dude before) surprise. since he retired from the air force and has a outdoor guide-type job he figured he might as well.we ate our feast at his sister debbie's (no picture of her by herself-oops!). she lives on the same property as his parents. her husband dean cut the turkey, and we had all the traditional things. nothing scary and southern that i never heard of. although we did have fake stuffing :( and i missed our traditional apple pie with cheddar cheese too.

and here's all the kids together with their parents (debbie's in blue to the left). one of linda's daughters came by with her kids, and john's son was there so we got a pic of the great- and grand-kids too.there was much telling of family stories, and i was being social so i only knit a little bit (still clocked in 3 hours), mostly on chuck's sweater. when my family gets together we always talk about stuff that happened, so it was cool to hear another family's stories and feel more connected to them. chuck's started working on his genealogy again, so he was asking questions about older family too. his family has some seriously crazy history, some of it tragedy. we showed pictures of chuck's kids and stuff we've done. so overall it was a good day, and everyone was nice to me (that's most important first time meeting the whole family).

after everyone left and we were winding down for the night i made up a chart for the FFF and worked on it a bit. i'm using dale baby ull, and it's such nice springy stuff. makes me want to use it again. for the provisional cast on, i thought i'd be a genius and use the working yarn, pull it out and cruise on. so i finger chained the crochet and picked up the stitches. except when i went to pull out the crochet, it wouldn't unzip since the first stitch was using the yarn. yeah. so i undid the knot and pulled it out backward. still worked pretty good i guess, just not as fast and clean as unzipping. oh well. now i know that.

surprise!

2007-11-21T21:19:00.000-09:00

at the start of our last flight, from chicago to little rock, the pilot tells us the weather in little rock. mid 40s and cloudy i think he said. we stepped out of the airport into a humid summer day. it was like 70. whew. that's a 50 or so degree difference for us. we were glad we didn't bring our coats.

our drive up to harrison went pretty fast, and when we were about 15 minutes from his parents' house, chuck calls them. he's talking to his mom, and she starts (naturally) asking about thanksgiving. and me, i could have deflected her easy, but chuck has no idea what to say. he tells her what his kids are doing, and that we'll crash someone else's dinner so we don't have to cook. hehe. but then he tries to get her off track by talking about our trip to MA for christmas. and she wants to know, why aren't we visiting them? ummmm............wait a few minutes and we will. chuck got his way out of it somehow (i thought he was going to wait until we were closer to call in the first place, but....what can you do). he's talking to his dad when we pull up, and he tells him to come let us in cuz he's tired of talking to him on the phone. and here we hit a totally unexpected snag: his dad doesn't think we're really there, so why should he go to the door. he does though, and "just about jumps out of his britches" as chuck says.

it was a good surprise. at first they seemed kind of blasé about it, but they were still in shock i guess, cuz after about an hour they realized they hadn't hugged us. they were all excited though, because chuck's brother that lives in missouri was coming down too, and it was the first time all their kids had been together for thanksgiving in like 20 years. so that was pretty cool.

despite having overnight flights, i did get a fair amount of knitting done between yesterday and tonight. Xela's socks are just zooming along. check em outgotta love that larger gauge. i've got chuck's sweater and FFF along too, they got some attention but the progress isn't as noticable as socks. maybe i'll take some shots at the end of the week.

i'm leaving on a jet plane. . . .

2007-11-20T16:46:00.000-09:00

(obviously i didn't get this posted before i left, but what can i say. better late than never and all that. one more postdated post won't matter)

monday i got another day of ~~babysitting~~ teaching math. good to have another day of work, but boring as all get out. i ran across some of my sunday school kids, and they said hi, which is always cool.

today was a no-work day, getting ready for arkansas. my biggest worry before trips is not what clothes to bring, but which books and knitting projects to bring and how many. there's all those hours on planes and in airports, the 3 hour drive from little rock to chuck's parents' house.......all those boring hours in between listening to family talk........i can't stand to have nothing to do.

and the very worst thing of all? make sure you're sitting down and all that: they don't have internet. that i'm worried about. but i'm going to be a good girl and take progress pics and write posts on my computer and put them up once i get home.

although i think for the FFF shawl, i'll take pics and post them all at once at the end. do kind of a start to finish post on it. but i'll still talk about it, you'll just have to imagine what it looks like ;)

for a really cool faroese shawl, check out the raven one at knitspot. wow. the yarn (from blue moon fiber arts) is a new line with all these raven-esque names, awesome black with slight tones of other colors. irtfa'a was designed to actually look like a bird, with feather patterns and this awesome feathery edging. i have so got to buy me that pattern. some day. when i've caught up to my queue - if i can wait that long. like after christmas maybe.

the green man collection was very good. i didn't quite get through all of the stories before the book was (over)due, and it's one of those awful books with references to more cool books, so i'll have to get it back out again later. cool forest stories, i really liked them.

last night we had potato soup in an effort to use up our milk before leaving. we had some kielbasa so i threw that in too, but then the dill that normally goes in potato soup didn't seem quite right. so i put in some cumin and coriander. mmmmmm, that was good. you should try it sometime.

speaking of food, we had a thanksgiving dinner at church last week. i brought stuffing, the real kind. with sausage. everyone else that brought stuffing did the fake stuff. it just doesn't taste as good, and real stuffing is dumb easy to make so i haven't ever figured out why people make the fake stuff. since stuffing is one of my favorite bits of thanksgiving, i asked chuck if his parents would make real or fake and he didn't know. *sigh* if i knew, i'd offer to make stuffing for them. i wonder what kind of food we'll get there anyway, since they're in "the south." could be interesting. . . . .

anyway. . . . 4 books, 2 knitting magazines and 3 knitting projects later, my packing's done. and you know what? i'm still worried i'll finish it all and be bored stiff. silly. huh?

miracles do happen

2007-11-19T23:36:00.000-09:00

usually when i swatch, i end up going down at least one needle size, sometimes more. since i have both metric and US needles, it can take a while to figure out which size i want to go with. but last week i decided to swatch for a pair of broadripples, using (almost) the yarn specified in the pattern. and you know what? i used the needle size they said and got gauge dead on the first try. wow. how cool is that?

(on the left the overexposed pic, on the right the truer to color but too dark pic)

the broadripples are for (my brother) adam's girlfriend xela. she liked the pattern and picked out yarn ages ago, sort of for fun. but since i have some time before christmas (and lots of travel time coming uup) i thought i'd make her some socks got christmas. cast on yesterday, and you know, i forget how fast knitting can go if you have less than 6 stiches per inch. after just a few hours, i've got about 6 inches. these won't take long.

even though xela picked out the yarn, i'm not convinced she'll like it. the colors are a bit different than the website showed (it's elann esprit print berry garden colorway), a little darker. and they're not all colors that i would pick out for myself. but then chuck pointed out if she doesn't like them, then i won't have to make any more socks for her! an excellent point.

as of friday, the thujas are all done. (hence the new projects) i haven't got a good picture though. doesn't seem to matter what kind of lighting i try, they come out as black-looking blobs (despite being navy blue) *sigh* i'll keep trying and post good pics once i get them.

i was brave and finally ripped back the hederas. the one oversized, and the other past the heel. i figured if i was going to rip it out i might as well add an inch or two to the leg. before i start working on it again i'm going to have to do a swatch, just to make sure i know what i'm doing this time. augh. i'd rather swatch and be sure, but it's not my idea of fun knitting.

last week i even took time to be social on top of all that knitting. chuck got tickets through work to the top of the world classic, the first session on thursday. there were two games, the first was the UAF nanooks against the tennessee state tigers. that one was not too exciting, but the second was colorado state against oregon state, and that was more competetive. it's an invitational tournament, but there aren't very many well-known names that come. still, it was a fun night out, and free to boot.

today i finished up the FFF (Feather and Fan Faroese shawl) swatching. the silly pattern says 4-5 stitches per inch is best, and row gauge is the critical bit, but then they don't say what the row gauge is. duh. so i think i swatched 4 different needle sizes (remember that whole US-metric thing? yeah) and somehow got 6 stiches per inch for US 5/3.75 mm through US 7/4.5mm. how that works out i don't know. finally i said screw it and cast on with the one i liked best (they did look looser as i went up in size, but somehow the stockinette measurement stayed the same). after a few rows of seed stitch for the neck border i measured and it was 5 stiches per inch on the US 5. *sigh* swatches lie. trust your instincts.

so i can't count

2007-11-14T20:02:00.000-09:00

it was more like 16-20 rows left on that woven stitch towel, but i still finished it monday night. yay! yesterday i washed and dried both towels. no bleeding that i could see - the water was a little pink when i peeked once, but no color at the end of the cycle. the yarn loses a lot of stiffness, it's still cottony-stiff but not as harsh. both sets of towels i washed with other bath towels to test the colorfastness, and while the color stayed put, all kinds of blue and red fuzzies got over the other towels.

don't they look good (in all their fuzzy picture glory)? mostly they just look like towels, which is good enough for me. the woven stitch is a bit square, but since i didn't do any math, i can't complain. funny the difference 1 inch in width makes. *shrug* oh, and the edges on the red towel? no more curling. whoo-hoo!!! (you can see the stockinette trying to pop out between the mossgrid squares even in the pictures).

the thuja is at the heel turn now. the math teacher job i have the rest of this week is looking like worksheet babysitting stuff, which equals knitting time. i'm figuring it'll be done by the end of the week.

and then. . . . all the projects that were demanding attention took a chill pill so i'm trying to pick my next project solely by how much i want to knit it. that feather and fan faroese shawl i think will still be up next, but it should be a (relatively) fast project. if for nothing else, because i've only got 2 skeins to use on it ;) i'm feeling kinds cramped since i narrowed my focus to get the last projects done. i might need to cast on 3 projects at once! and definitely pick something not in any shade of red. bright red is not my friend at any time, but maroon i can get friendly with. chuck's sweater and those towels are in the red family, as are the hederas i should be finishing up. so something not red.

chuck's at a church meeting tonight, which makes for good swatching. . . .

hmmmm.........

counting down

2007-11-11T21:56:00.000-09:00

to our arkansas trip. at least chuck is. he's getting as excited as a little boy in a candy shop. but when he says, "11 days" do you know what i think? a horrified, "oh no, i only have 11 days to finish the last towel?" i suppose it's extra motivation, and i did pass the halfway mark yesterday.it's looking good now. i actually dreamed i was checking in at the airport, and realized suddenly that i didn't have any knitting with me! i went into a panic, but since i was 3 hours early for the flight (definitely a dream-i haven't ever been that early) i was going to go home and get projects - i even knew which ones. but people kept preventing me, and that's how the dream ended. ugh. but i just counted before taking pics, and i only have 2 pattern reps to go. which is only 12 rows (a lot less after sunday evening knitting than it was this morning). so maybe i'll finish it once this post is done. whew.

my thujas aren't progessing very fast lately, since i've had jobs where i actually have to teach - again. *sigh* so i try to knit at least an hour at home. and there's all that flying time coming up. . . . . i'm sure they'll get done this month. at least i'm on the second sock! the back of chuck's sweater is almost through the ribbing now. i'm still only knitting it in church, but it will get lots of attention in arkansas.this picture actually captured the color pretty good, and if you enlarge it, you can still see the stitch pattern. all the other pics make the yarn look too pink, or bright red.

this week i've got jobs lined up every day. the checkbook is very happy. especially with trips coming up. it's weird having holidays getting closer and not needing to plan for them. no cookie baking, no family get-togethers at our place. no stress :)

i finally learned, in one of my sporadic trips into html-land, how to space my pictures so they're not right up on each other. blogger only lets you pick central, left and right aligned or none. now i fight the temptation to go back and properly space all the pictures ever posted. that's not anal or anything, is it?

a minor miracle occured last week. the frosted lemon verbena
came back to life! they were out in the garage until i got around to dumping them and reusing the pots. it's cooler out there, and they don't get any light, except a few minutes when we leave the house. but somehow that was enough, and it's got just a couple shoots struggling to grow (just one plant, the other's still frosted). i'm babying it as much as i can.

my chives are back in the house now too. the roots needed to freeze for a month. unfortunately for them, it snowed while they were out there and chuck didn't see the pot. they got shoveled right off the deck. luckily they stayed in the pot, and are coming back to life now.

we got a new bird house, since our stooges seemed a bit cramped. they didn't like being moved (bit chuck's hands!!) but they seem to be settling in fine and liking the extra space.

oh, and another winter surprise: my rose is blooming again!

i never act like a kid anymore. . . . .

2007-11-10T10:54:00.000-09:00

so another thing i haven't quite gotten over from my childhood (besides sitting in the back of the room so no one can pull my hair and make fun of me) is walking in newfallen snow and matching my footprints to another set so that it looks like someone was jumping.jumping at an angle maybe, but jumping. i still giggle looking back at the tracks and picturing someone coming along and thinking "what the. . . . . .?"just to prove i am grownup, here's a pretty picture. see how the spruce needles contrast the snow?

some things you just can't predict

2007-11-08T17:22:00.000-09:00

like when your interweave knits will show up in the mailbox. last issue came in about a month after it hit the stands (no, i wasn't a new subscriber or anything) and the winter issue is here. today. a whole week before it's out on the stands. did i do something good today? this month? craziness.

and some sock yarn i ordered came in. some things can make it to alaska in less than a month! since i ordered it monday (i think) that was way faster than i anticipated. i'll have to work faster on those thujas now so i can ~~start a new pair~~ finish my clessidras. and hedera. gulp.

another thing you can't predict (and wouldn't that have been a good title for reviewing how many ~~don't~~ come to knit group) is how intertwined tamora pierce's series are. luckily, bonnie at knit group started talking books with me. when i told her i was about to read trickster's choice and realized it was after the lioness rampant books, she was kind enough to let me know the immortal books fall in between the two. man, i'da been irritated to find that out late. some books are independent enough it doesn't matter what order you read them in, but i like to follow a character's development. and those series don't let you know that they have anything to do with one another.

i now have to the hilt by dick francis in my stack too, recommended by the crochet lady. although i mostly read fantasy and sci-fi, i'll read anything good, and she says he writes good mysteries. so we'll see.

also hard to predict? if i'll get any dishes done with a new IK, new yarn, and pierce books tempting me.

a pat on the back

2007-11-07T17:40:00.000-09:00

a while back (so back that i can't find so i don't expect anyone to remember it) i wrote about my project schizophrenia, my habit of having *cough* a few projects in progress at the same time. dashing from project to project i ~~never~~ don't always take time to appreciate what i've done. so i've been trying to take at least 5 seconds to consciously notice finishing a project, or hitting a turning point.

and then i found limenviolet through ravelry. they have all kinds of cool knitting info and links and fun articles. and they have (drumroll please) knitwars. based on chorewars, a site where you get points for doing housework, there's "knitting adventures" that you gather points for doing. it's a little silly i guess, but doing it really helps me to notice my progress and appreciate it. so instead of feeling like i'm drowning under the weight of my current projects (not to mention wishlist projects), i feel like i'm doing good. and it's fun.

a different kind of progress was made yesterday: our knit group met with 4 people showing up! besides me! craziness!! one chick, dahlia, was just learning, and got the knit and purl stitch down easy. another lady, bonnie, started a pair of socks, knitting on dpns (and in the round) for the first time. sue got the hang of ribbing again, and learned to knit and purl continental style. she'll be making her first pair of socks. the last lady was crocheting granny squares, and learned to make a miter-looking square. loads of fun, even though i didn't get much knitting done myself.

it's called progress folks

2007-11-06T23:02:00.000-09:00

the mossgrid towels are off the needles, washed and dried! not blocked properly, because i don't have to have to, and that's what my motherinlaw will do to them. 'member how the edges were turning under? they still are :( darn. my faith in seed stitch is ruined. this is the best picture i could get of them - tomorrow i'll try outside. but that one towel set done. and the second woven stitch towel is started! with jobs for the next week and a half, i'm expecting the thujas to be finished soon. the other socktoberfest hopefuls, hedera and clessidra, will be getting some attention once i get the thujas and their deadline out of my system. and once i get the courage up to rip back the hederas. ouch.

somehow on sunday, while watching the highlights from the patriots-colts game (cuz chuck was being good and not watching tv on sunday and we forgot about the game till it was over :( bummer!), i almost almost finished the front of chuck's sweater! oh the agony of being almost (but not) done, watching the clock get closer to too late, and being only a couple rows short of done when you discover you messed up. *sigh* somewhere the decreases jumped out of order while i was watching interceptions and randy moss catches (and gloating over a payton manning defeat). so i yanked them into order tonight and here's the front
that is the closest i've gotten to the actual yarn color so far. now for the back! i'm still hoping to finish this by christmas................

o happy feet

2007-11-06T15:44:00.000-09:00

this is thy sheath

finally, the finished broadripples! finished last tuesday i guess. time flies faster than i take and post pictures. and, reporting a bit late and all, but finishing these and getting through one thuja were my socktoberfest results. i was quite happy with them. finally getting these done (and still not remembering why i stopped working on them) made my month. i want to wear them every day. just cuz i have nice socks for myself. finally.

bad habits

2007-11-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

lately i've gotten into the bad habit of not having time to write a post and just scribbling down a few notes of what i wanted to post. except then they build up into novel-like posts. so while i'm not joining any of those crazy almost-acronyms i am going to try to post rather than scribble. cuz when all those scribbles add up? it feels like work and i don't want to post anymore.

so .....let's see what i have today. i've been reading a bit on the side, mostly YA novels (this means they're shorter so i whiz through them). heartlight was a pretty good book, very similar to a wrinkle in time, but with less depth. the first few pages made me wary, because they were so so similar to l'engle. a new england farmhouse, malcontented teenage girl with braces, interested in science but not in school, father/grandfather working on faster than light travel & mysteries of the universe. the story line was original though, with some cool ideas. somehow it seemed a little superficial, with a resolution similar to wrinkle. i'd still recommend it though.

apparently the seeker wasn't a great office box hit up here cuz it was in and out before i could see it. not that i was dying to see it in the theater, but it could have been a good date. lately we've been getting lots of movies i never heard of for very short runs. thank goodness for netflix. we finally saw pan's labyrinth. i really liked it, although it was unexpectedly bloody in parts. the fairy tale aspect was fascinating and surreal, and at the end you're not sure if it was real or unreal. a good movie, but with those violent bits (most war related), i wouldn't watch it with kids.

i've been anticipating the golden compass' release next month, but i'm a bit worried about the interpretation. kind of like the seeker. *sigh* hollywood did such a good job with narnia, why can't they show the same respect to other fantasy novels?

for halloween we went to a little party (ok there was tons of kids and people you normally don't see) at church. they always call it a "harvest festival" for some reason, except it's on halloween and exactly like a halloween party. i shake my head at the silliness. kim and austin came , with seth dressed as a lion (no, we're bad, i don't have any pics). we had fun. there was one little girl around a year old in a white bear costume that had the cutest growl. her face lit up if you asked what a bear says and she'd growl a few times for you.

the last two days i had off for parent/teacher conferences. i was heartbroken - not! my math job is done. i think. the teacher is adopting her newborn granddaughter and may need more time off. the kids were still trying to convince me to somehow get their normal teacher fired and become their fulltime teacher. and they said they would miss me - one girl even gave me a hug. awww. made me feel good, even with the math element.

i got some other warm fuzzies too. the woven stitch towel and fjörgyn were faved on ravelry. somebody likes what i made! i feel so appreciated this week.

thursday i was a good girl and did some housework. ok, so i still didn't get the cobwebs (they'll just make more anyway) but i did fold the laundry that i don't remember washing, took screens out of windows and took down the curtain rods. they haven't had curtains since last winter i think. i got rid of them as fast as i could convince chuck to let me. windows are for looking out. i hate curtains, shades or anything that gets in the way of my view of outside. we have pretty wood frames to, so they look nice without the curtains. and they look better without the rods! i even did some handwashing (finally) - all while chuck was on ebay. he's like a little kid discovering a candy store in his back yard.

we babysat seth thursday night, which was fun. we don't see him very often, so i don't think he really knows that chuck is his grandpa. we had fun playing with himand feeding him pizza crusts. i took advantage of kim's white rug to take pics of old FOs for ravelry. our rug's so ugly it just detracts from the picture. it's kind of cool seeing things pile up there and realizing how much i've made in the 4 years since i started knitting again. when i go home for christmas i'll be taking more pics of stuff i gave away. since i always forget to take pics. i used to have a good excuse cuz i had a sucky camera (birthday present when i was 12, very low quality - but i actually kept it till i was 27!). now i've got the digital and still forget. . . *sigh* but i think i've got pics now of everything here that i've made.

the broadripples are all done, but will be in a future post since i washed them but want a pic of them on my feet. they went so fast once i picked them up again! the stripes are a bit different, fatter on one sock than the other, but i don't mind. they still look nice. i cast on the 2nd thuja tuesday (i think) but haven't done much on it since i haven't been in school.

despite not knitting much the last few days, the second mossgrid is halfway done. yay! i'm itching to cast on a shawl but told myself i had to finish the towels first. i was planning on knitting the summer shawlette to try out the faroese style shawls, but since i got stahman's shawls and scarves (one of my bits of plunder from the ebay spree) i decided to go with something else more interesting. a feather and fan (i love that stitch), knit neck down so i can still use up the yarn i've got. i have 2 other yarns in my stash that i'm thinking of making shawls with, but i'm not sure if i'd wear them. or what pattern they'd look good in. so those keep rolling around in the back of my head.

while babysitting and not-watching the kingdom of heaven, i started in the hand of the goddess. reading kids' book makes me feel like a fast reader again. i blasted through it and finished it yesterday. i'm liking those books too, even though it was will of the empress all over again - went to read trickster's choice and found out it was sequel-ish to the lioness rampant books. luckily i had just read the first one, otherwise i'd never have known and spoiled the ending for myself. knowing the ending ahead of time sucks.

chuck ran out of lights (we bought them last year, guessing how much we needed and never got them up since it was minus degrees when we moved in), so we bought a strand of blue lights to try out. we've got those icicle lights that dangle, and the pic on the blue box made the snow look like moonlight was on it. and for once, the picture didn't lie! the blue lights are pretties, and now i just have to figure out how to convince chuck we want to buy all blue lights. hmmm . . . . . .

oh, and if anyone knows how to get rid of the little gnat buggies that live in houseplant dirt, PUH-LEASE let me know. they're making me crazy, and i don't want to ditch the plants (which is chuck's idea of a solution).

heebie jeebies

2007-11-01T15:14:00.000-08:00

i've got this internal timeline for some things. summer ends, the air turns crisp. leaves turn to red and gold, then drift down to make piles for jumping in. the first snow comes, melts, then more snow. and right after that - christmas. that's just the way it goes. summer, leaves, snow, christmas.

living in alaska (and sweden) hasn't changed my internal clock any. so since we've blasted through summer and the falling leaves and the first few snowfalls, what i want to know is, when's christmas?

my internal clock says it's just weeks away. i'm all heebie jeebies thinking about presents for people and decorations (chuck put our outside lights up this week - it'll be way too cold and dangerous by christmas time to put them up).

*sigh*

the good thing is, i guess i'll get my shopping done early!

sox - toberfest

2007-10-27T22:38:00.000-08:00

this post has been stewing a while. work and knitting and life have been taking up my time. which is rather a good thing. real life wins out over the computer anytime.

so..........how bout those red socks? while the playoffs were going on chuck said "wouldn't it be funny if it ended being the rockies against the red sox?" ie His team vs. My team. he totally jinxed them. and i don't think he's happy with the results. the first game i had to tease him, and of course a little today. i can't believe they sweeped the rockies. it was the perfect ending to the whole sox-toberfest (i couldn't resist the pun - sorry).

born and raised in MA i've always been a red sox and patriots fan. they always seemed to have this pattern though: do great during the season, get into playoffs, decide it's vacation time and crash and burn. so these last few years it's great to see the teams actually remembering to play during the postseason. and win. i love it. and with the pats 8-0 the superbowl's looking pretty good too. we're coming up against the colts though. i hope we whoop em. last year i banned payton manning's name, just because they said it every other second on espn.

in other good news. . . ah yes. the grand seaming event of last saturday. i was It. so i did what i could, and still have most of the squares to sew up. *sigh* at least the pressure's off. since then i've only done "fun" projects, but there's no school thurs and fri this week so i'll have my own private netflix seaming party then. and maybe get rid of the cobwebs in the house. the whole blanket project is turning into more of an ongoing thing, which is good because i still have squares (thankfully) trickling in. so given time we can do more.

the first fun thing i did was finish the woven stitch towel. yay!

the edges curl just a bit, but i can live with that.

last weekend i worked on chuck's neglected sweater until i couldn't stand it anymore. now i'm about 3 inches from the neck decreases. like a horror film, i knit but don't seem to get any closer. stake conference this weekend gave me plenty of time to work on it. for mostly being a church knitting project, it's coming along fairly well. i have a dream of it being done in time for our thanksgiving trip, but know it probably won't happen.

i finished the thuja. i tried the sewn bind off for the first time and *really* liked it. my first toe-up sock i had to go up like 3 needle sizes for it to be loose enough to fit over my foot. the sewn bind off is like grafting half a stitch so it's super easy. and flexible! i was very happy with it.
broadripple 2 got started and almost finished last week, mostly knitting at school during my prep period. that's the best thing about high school i think. it just needs an inch or two and it'll be done. no pics, cuz, hey, it looks just like the first one. and the stripes match up pretty good, maybe half a row off.

i finished reading scions of shannara. despite having no recollection of the story line, i apparently have read it before, since i came across a quote i copied from it. i definitely don't remember it being a trilogy. so, druid of shannara up next once i go to the library tuesday. yesterday i barely started heartlight but i'll tell you about that tomorrow (it's almost bedtime).

today i started the second moss grid towel. i noticed on the first one that the seed borders on the sides fold in pretty bad. it's not blocked yet (i figured i'd do both of them at the same time) so hopefully it'll go away. that'll be my home knitting, while the socks are my school knitting.

sadly, the job i have right now is math. which means the kids have questions and need help during class (yeah i actually have to, like, teach) so i don't knit. luckily it was a 5 day job. the checkbook likes gigs like that. it helps keep the kids in line too. they haven't been a problem at all though, and i was a little discomfited to learn i was popular friday. i started wednesday, but only had 3 of the 5 classes. friday i had all of them. they tell me i'm better than their normal teacher, which i take with a grain of salt. (have i mentioned lately i hate math?) but then friday, the new afternoon class asked some question, which they thought i would explain well, and said they'd been told i was a good teacher. what do you say to that? not being a real teacher and hating math? i guess if they tell it to their friends they mean it.

most of my pics were taken outside cuz the inside light sucks here. you know what's tricky about takings pics in AK? your breathe fogs up the lens and makes the pic blurry :( but still, here are some pics of the fjörgyn + buttons for you to enjoy. and for all of you out there (tanya) always asking why i'm not in the pics, i even got chuck to take some with me wearing it.

i think i like not blogging for a week, i feel like i've done so much!

oh yeah

2007-10-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

after that little practice storm, we're getting some real snow. the flakes are still a little too dandruffy for me, but i promise i won't whine about that all winter. we're getting a decent accumulation now, but it's hard to know exactly how much cuz it's just piling on top of what's left from last time. almost 6 in. i love snow, there's something magical about it. here's the view from my living room

it is starting to pile up a bit. i went to visit chuck at work for lunch, and a 5 min trip took 15 min. (the alaskan drivers don't help). tomorrow we can go sledding! that gets me all excited like a little kid every time. wanna hear about my two favorite sledding trips ever?

when i was a kid (8?10?less?) it been snowing, and my mom went out for the evening. she got home late - everyone was in bed but me. the snow had stopped, and the full moon was out, lighting up the snow with that blue sparkly halo. my mom had me wake everyone up and we went sledding at the park around the corner. we had so much fun, even though they didn't have really big hills. it had to have been around midnight, there was that late night hush, and no one was around. we got to make the first tracks in the snow, every kid's dream. i still smile, thinking about that.

the other time was when tanya and i woke up at like freaking 5 am (it might have been even earlier) to go sledding at canyon park (?i think?) in provo. people had been there before us, but the park was deserted then and it was that same suspended animation feeling of life at a distance. oh, except for there was this one guy walking his dog. who jumped on tanya when she went down the hill. hehehe. that still makes me laugh.

and then there was the time with my 2yr old nephew that he still remembers, and sliding down the hill in my mom's front yard with my 8 month old niece. she thought it was a blast. memories like that are why i love winter.
not to mention the loveliness of birch outlined by snow. everything looks like an ansel adams photo.

besides the snow, the title refers to the thuja sock i started. by wed night, i was exactly halfway throught the heel. whoo-hoo! what was i stressing for? i think it was overexcitement caused by getting yarn for 2 projects at the same time. i didn't get much knitting in yesterday (overseeing paper mache is not conducive to knitting or clean pants) but still

not bad huh? and here's the promised pic of the finished broadripple
i really like how it came out. if only the second sock would magically knit itself up now.....

and while i don't have a pic of fjörgyn (i thought i'd actually be in it - no heartattacks now - but i need chuck's help for that), i did take a pic of the buttons to tide you over that's my favorite style of viking art, the urnes style. i was glad to find something that went along with the overall design.

tonight we're going to a holiday bazaar on eielson, so i don't think i'll get much knitting done. tomorrow is the grand seaming event for the women's shelter project, so i'm trying to get a ouple more squares in. somehow i feel bad that i couldn't make a whole blanket myself, but i know there wasn't enough time and planning for it. luckily we have enough for 1 or 2 blankets with the bounty i got sunday. hopefully i won't be the only one seaming the up though.

the results of last week's knitting book spree are starting to come in also, and lure me temporarily away from knitting. although they can lay flat, so maybe i'll just have to read and knit at the same time . . . .

but for now, i've got to make dinner and start some chili for tomorrow. the flakes have gotten bigger just since i started this post. maybe they'll get the hang of things after all :D

edited to adjust pictures

catch up

2007-10-16T17:55:00.000-08:00

if you happen to get my feed (so sorry!) you might have noticed a flood of posts today. that's cuz they've been sitting around waiting for pictures and i decided to let them go without the pics. i still haven't taken the pics. once i do, i'll have a big pic post. how's that sound? for some reason it seems like a post isn't a post without pictures of some kind. if that's true, none of those count and you can't feel overwhelmed :)

sunday i was very encouraged to get some squares from people. *whew* i was worried i was the only one making them and there wouldn't be enough for even one blanket. looks like enough for one blanket at least, which is good. now i'll just have to hope that someone wants to help me seam them together saturday....

after finishing broadripple friday (i even grafted the toe and weaved in the ends! i'm such a good girl), i swatched all weekend for thuja. first a normal swatch to get the gauge i wanted, and then to test the stitch pattern. since the pattern is for worsted yarn and i'm using sock, it did look a bit different. i adapted the seed rib to have the same wide look as the original. and then i figured out all the math for the size and the repeats, and then i worked through 3 different toes. cuz, oh yeah, i'm knitting it toe up and with a short row heel. so basically it's a totally different sock, except the idea for the seed rib came from bobby whats-is-name (which i still give him credit for).

i ended up using a crocheted provisional cast on, because the other ones seemed to leave the stitches too loose. i hate having to go back to tighten stitches and stuff. after finishing the broadripple, there was still a decent amount of yarn left and i thought, darn i could have added a couple inches to the leg. so i figured going toe up will help me use up more yarn. those little bits of leftover yarn make me nuts. i don't want to throw them out, but usually can't find a practical use for them. argh.

so the thujas are on a roll, the pattern is easy and fast (so far - bet it'd be faster with worsted yarn). the socktoberfest is still moving along. today i got the yarn for the second mossgrid and woven towels, plus another set of US 1 dpns. goody goody. now i can cast on the second broadripple too. i figure if i work 3 days this week, i'll get the second broadripple and the thujas done.

for a special treat try this rosemary apple meatloaf. it's good stuff. very juicy with interesting flavors. i only used one apple, and some of the rosemary i grew this summer.

the other day i was leaving my web page while commenting somewhere (still diligently trying to delurk), and accidentally left out the "p" in blogspot, making it blogsot. hmmm....do you thin it's possible to get drunk on blogs? if i'm reading so many blogs i don't have time to post in my own, if i eagerly check every couple hours for new posts, would that be a blogsot? are you a blogsot?

tempt me not. . . .

2007-10-15T13:33:00.000-08:00

o thou evil purveyor of out of print knitting books and coins and steins

this weekend chuck discovered ebay. he knew of it, but hadn't really looked on it. i was looking for myrna stahman's shawls and scarves (prompted by something i no longer remember on ravelry) which i found. while i was there i looked up aran knitting, the horribly expensive out of print book, cuz i would love to have it, and look for it if i happen to remember it. it doesn't happen often. this weekend, there was actually two of them for sale. unfortunately, chuck had just gotten a bonus from work. oh, the temptation.

while i dithered over spending so much money on a book (i mean, it cost like 30 bucks when it came out, how did the paper get to be worth so much? supply and demand, man, it's all supply and demand), chuck asked what else they sell on ebay. hello. is he on drugs? they sell everything. so we looked up some ship's chronometers and beer steins, both of which chuck loves for some unclear reason. now, chuck is an auction man through and through. i think he picked it up in arkansas. of course he had to place some bids. and then he started looking at coins, which he collects (cuz they're an Investment and Will Be Worth Something Some Day).

so.....by today, chuck had won 2 steins and some mercury dimes (never heard of 'em before). and i ended up with both books. ebay is a dangerous place. i am both elated and ashamed of the aran knitting. the final cost was still less then $200 but more than $150. ajajaj. the worst part was i did a brother tom. let me explain.

at church a while back we had a dessert auction to help fund the youth group. chuck, as i said, is an auction man. he likes to bid even if he's not going to buy. he likes to bid people up and watch them fall on their faces. we were sitting with our home teacher, brother tom. after watching the fun chuck was having, he decided to join in. him and chuck went back and forth for a bit and suddenly chuck stopped bidding. tom was dumbfounded, and ended up with a german chocolate cake.

so back to ebay. since chuck spoils me so much, and knows how much i wanted this book, he said i could bid. the lowest price i've seen it for is $200 on amazon, and i wasn't sure if i wanted it that bad. saturday morning the auction was ending, and i thought, i'll just bid a little. i was automatically bid up a couple times, which made me curious. how high had the person set their limit? the highest i would go was $175. i bid up to that, and was still outbid. by then i was really curious, and thought to myself, i'll go just 5 more dollars and that's final. seriously. $180 for a book? it was a big stretch but i was expecting to be outbid again. oops. i wasn't. so i am now the ~~ashamed~~ proud owner of aran knitting. not quite the same as german chocolate cake, but it'll last longer.

from the evils of ebay, dear lord, preserve us

EW

2007-10-12T20:21:00.000-08:00

so today i was a health teacher, and got to ~~knit~~ show a movie all day. i don't know about you but i have very vague memories of health class, involving a little about vitamins, this guy asking how to not get pregnant (which let everyone knew he was sleeping with his girlfriend) and the movie of the lady giving birth.

guess what movie i showed today?

the fetal development/birth one. i felt so sorry for those kids (grades 7 & 8 - at least i was in 10th when i had to see it). lucky for me, the desk was facing the class on the same side as the tv, so i didn't actually have to see it again. *whew* every class went exactly the same. a little reaction when they talk about conception and show the sperm squiggling around, and maybe a little about the developing baby. the movie goes through the development by week, and ends with a little bit on labor. then the voice stops talking, and you can hear, from the baby's perspective, the mom breathing harder in labor. i don't think the kids noticed. cuz all of a sudden the baby literally pops out (and i'm studiously not looking and remembering 10th grade) and across the classroom everyone shuts up and has the most grossed out expressions you can imagine.

it was great.

one of the kids said he thought they should wait till they're older to show it. but i told him i didn't think the age difference helps any, cuz i didn't even want to see it. after the movie, all the girls were saying "i'm never having kids." maybe that's why they show them that movie.

anyway, while they were being grossed out, i finished a broadripple sock. whoo-hoo! guess i'm not such a slow knitter. it was just barely past the toe when i started the day. i'll post a pic of it once i take it.

i even had time left over before school finished, so i went over my clessidra. i was hesitating over the ankle because it looked enormous. comparing it to the finished broadripple (which fit like a glove) it looked even worse. so i tried it on and measured and figured that it was probably an inch too wide. so i frogged back to where the side cables join, and i'll reduce them down to the one cable. that ought to fix it. they fit ok when i tried them on, but i didn't want any extra material rubbing my feet in shoes.

i'm excited now to cast on the other broadripple. this socktoberfest thing is fun!

my ankles lost weight

2007-10-11T22:57:00.000-08:00

yesterday i pulled out the broadripple sock to reacquaint myself with its problems. i swear the ankle was too tight. i swear, back in the spring, that there was something wrong with the fit in the ankle and heel. if it didn't have any problems why would i stop knitting? (problems and boredom are the only reasons i stop working on something) well, i tried it on and it fit perfectly. like it was tailored to me. like my math was fine, like my ankles weren't too fat. so the only conclusion i could come to was, either my ankles lost weight or my memory's wrong. ankles losing weight sounds way cooler.

so i'll be working on that sock this week while i mull over the clessidra gauge problem.

tonight, after hours with a needle, fjörgyn is absolutely, totally finished. yay!! i sewed a couple buttons on last night, and finished them off tonight. it looks good! once i get around to taking pics i'll post them. for thread i just used the yarn itself and wove it in really good, passed through the button twice. they seem sturdy enough, and that yarn practically felts on contact so i think they'll be ok. feels good to have everything done on it now, since it's all it's needed since springtime was buttons. now i can wear it and feel extra-cool cuz i made it myself! and give myself a pat on the back for finishing something!

at school today i got started on the broadripple again. knitting in school always brings an interesting amount of attention. surprisingly, no one says, man you must be a dork, you're knitting. a few kids either knit themselves or know someone that does, and say it's cool. a guy actually wanted to try knitting, but i didn't trust him. there was a girl who obviously wasn't sure what she thought of me knitting. they always ask what i'm knitting, and when i told her a sock, she asked "why would you knit socks?"

well, it was a duh moment for me. doesn't everyone know the benefits of knitted socks? i told her they were way more comfortable than store socks (a girl near her nodded enthusiastically, obviously she had personal experience with that), they're warm but not thick, sock knitting is fun, you can try out different patterns without making a huge sweater......about there i petered out. she still looked at me like i was nuts. *sigh* handmade socks rock! if only she knew.

fiddling

2007-10-09T21:50:00.000-08:00

this weekend was great for snow, conference and knitting. it snowed for 3 days, but only worked its way up to real snowflakes yesterday (day 3). total accumulation was (maybe) 2 inches. back home in MA if it snowed for 3 days (o glorious blizzard) we'd have 4 feet or more. cuz we get real snowflakes there, not these dandruff flakes. *sigh*

clessidra got a lot of attention. i got to the bit in the pattern that says knit 4 inches to the top of the ankle, which should have been about 3 reps of the hourglass pattern. except i got through 1 rep, and tried it on. came exactly to the top of my ankle. hmmm. since i have big feet and long legs i didn't know what the heck was going on. until a rare thought struck me - what was my row gauge? yeah that. usually it doesn't matter. this time it did. so i knit less reps, and got through the heel - twice. the whole heel/ankle needs some fiddling to fit, just because of the gauge difference. augh. and here i though i'd be avoiding the math and fiddling with patterns.

so i'm still not sure if i'm satisfied, but by then i'd had enough of one project and needed to move on. i'll let it stew in the back of my brain until i figure out what i want to do. i figured 4+ hours of sock knitting was a good start to socktoberfest.

but - i finished the first moss grid towel!!hoo-ra!

started the other towel in a woven stitch pattern that chuck picked out. i'm liking it. too bad towels have to come in twos, cuz i'm not looking forward to the other moss grid one.

and the log cabin square is done (from mason-dixon knitting btw, forgot to mention that last time). i really like the technique. for this shelter project, somebody donated a huge bag of (horrible) acrylic yarn. there aren't very many colors in there to match, but i think i got a decent color combo for my log cabin square. but next time i think i'll plan out the color placement a little better, cuz i'm not sure about the green and yellow opposing each other. oh well.
the ill-fated knitting group met. it's living up to its name. i'm going to have to give it initials, just to avoid writing it out all the time. the IFKG. one person showed up thursday morning. she was reminding herself how to knit. it was fun, but only 1 other person to a meeting is not exactly encouraging. interestingly enough, none of the people wanting to learn came. hmmm....

my ravelry is slowly shaping up. i'm (sort of) doing good not spending too much time there. the hardest thing is getting pictures and specs of finished projects. a photo shoot in MA is already planned to get pics of gifted projects. ravelry has so much information gathered in one spot that it's easy to wander around and lose track of time.

a funny story to end with: i know i've become a mild sort of yarn snob, turning my nose up at acrylic. wool is queen or a cotton blend, although i'm still too poor to be a rowan or mohair addict (besides mohair is too furry for me i think). if i could afford it, i'd be a quviut junkie. but anyway. chuck has apparently been on enough LYS trips with me to become a mild snob himself, because when i got that bag of free yarn he said, "that's the yucky stuff isn't it?"

i was so proud of him.

larry curly and moe

2007-10-09T20:35:00.000-08:00

so last friday i get a job at the high school, where i have to be at the ungodly hour of 7 am. the kids are ok, but it's the most boringest job ever, because they just have a chapter review assignment. that means i'm just crowd control, which isn't too hard in high school cuz they know if they don't cross the line i'll leave em alone to do almost whatever they want.

i finished reading the wishsong of shannara, started another book, and knit clessidra for a couple hours. i even visited the library and checked out some books (lucky for me all the school libraries are connected to the city library system - they have more paperbacks). after school, i have to stay for a half hour. once the kids leave, i check my cell phone to find a text from chuck

do you like parakeets?

for some reason, this gives me a bad feeling. especially since he sent it an hour and a half earlier. so i reply with, dunno. why?

while i wait for chuck's answer, i think about it some. birds look pretty, but anytime i've been to someone's house that has birds, they don't ever shut up (the birds, i mean) and they're kinda messy. so i don't think i'd want them for pets.

then chuck answers me: yes.

what the freak is that supposed to mean? why - yes. they don't really go together. he calls me up, and the long and the short of it is, some jamoke walked into the bank saying they had 3 parakeets they had to give away. and chuck took them. they're pretty. they're messy. and they're noisy. but not all the time, and chuck cleans up the mess. so it's ok.
chuck named them after the 3 stooges. cute huh. not quite as good as the last present he gave me. he was afraid that i would either a) kill him or b) kill the birds. i haven't done either yet. lucky for him, eh.
here from left to right you have curly, moe and larry. blame chuck for the blurry pics.

socktoberfest kick off

2007-10-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

the afternoon light was good for taking pictures, so here's to the beginning of socktoberfest! first is the half-finished clessidra. it's behaving itself very nicely.
then we have the two socks destined for oblivion in the knitting basket, were it not for the extra motivation of socktoberfest

hedera on the left, and broadripple on the right. take the hederas first. see how much bigger the sock on the left is? gauge problems. got in my head i was sposed to knit loose. go figure. and the sock on the right? that's the one with half the heel rows it should have. otherwise it was beautiful. i like the lace pattern a lot. simple, but pretty. next we have the broadripple. the pattern is well named, i like the waves of color. its actually not behaving too badly, i think the summer just caught up to it too soon.

since the light was so good, and there i was with the camera, i took some other shots. here's the square with the pattern for sara's tie, and a log cabin square i started last night. with the one person that showed up for the ill-fated knitting group. ojojoj. tomorrow morning is the other meeting. we can always hope i suppose. the one person learned to cable. that was fun. cables are cool cuz they look so fancy and complicated, but they're actually easy. watching someone else catch the excitement of cabling was fun.

and last of all is the ~~headless scarecrow~~ almost finished fjörgyn. just waiting for the buttons. maybe this weekend will be dedicated to finishing.

oh the weather outside is frightful, or mom, guess what?

2007-10-03T09:44:00.000-08:00

we woke up this morning to this
isn't that great?!!!
i was catching up on blogs and looked out the window to see some tiny flakes bravely struggling down. that's flurries more than snow, but nobody west of the mississippi seems to know that word. saying it's snowing has a much more petrifying effect on people anyway.

whoo-hoo!!!!

insanely early as it is, i love the first snowfall of the year. i have never quite figured out the magic of little white works of art falling from the sky. as a kid, i would lay on bed next to the window and try and see up to where the snow started falling. i'm so going for a walk.

to entertain you while i'm doing that, check this out

not that i have hundreds of people checking my blog who don't comment - i'm not even sure my family looks at it. and they probably have no clue you can comment. but the idea was fun. plus i just like saying mofo.