Oh, irony, how you make life interesting

Katie broke her streak of daily accidents this week! Of course, she had one the next two days in a row, but it feels like progress. I'll take it. I got a text from the adoption coordinator at the shelter and someone has been inquiring about her. I'll bring her to the meet-n-greet at Petsmart on Saturday, and hopefully she will be going home with a new family for keeps!

I've been having this urge to sew lately. Some of my friends have these cute little Japanese knot bags, and I've got fabric laying around and there are free patterns on the Internet. It doesn't look too hard (famous last words, ha ha!). But I don't have a good space for my sewing machine. There is room on the kitchen table, but then it gets in the way of eating. I have a whole spare room that has nothing in it but a few boxes I haven't looked into in a year, but no furniture in there. It's all just enough of a pain to make sewing a low priority. Until yesterday.

Having reduced every dog toy in the house to floppy shells, Miss Katie has taken on new, giant stuffies to destroy--the dog beds. When I first brought her home, I had three dog beds in different rooms of the house for Zen to lounge around on. Within the first week, she'd peed on one. It was a pain to wash, and I rationalized that Zen had two other beds and threw the smelly one away. Then a second one got torn to shreds. Last night, I was absorbed in a book, and only vaguely registered that she and Zen were play wrestling around me. I finished the last chapter, closed the book, and looked over to see what the dogs were doing.

That's the guts of the last bed. I wasn't really mad; puppies chew, and to her, it was not much different than any of the stuffies I'd allowed her to destroy. Just bigger. I felt worse that Zen now had nowhere soft to sleep, and was mildly annoyed that this little foster dog was going to cost me so much money in unexpected replacements for the things she's chewed up.

 

On closer inspection, I realized that she'd ruined the zipper of the outer cover, but the inner pillow was only torn at the seam. Fixing it wouldn't take much. So I pulled out the sewing machine and set it up on the floor of the spare room, and fixed the inner bag as best I could. I wish I had photos of the yoga poses I had to make up with the foot pedal at the same level as the sewing machine! It would be like trying to drive a car when the steering wheel was next to the gas pedal, and there were no seats in the car.

 

Now that the sewing machine is out again, I've really been bitten by the sewing bug. First, though, I'd like to have some sort of table to set up on. I spent my lunch hour at a flea market kind of place on the south side of town, but didn't see anything I really liked. I'd rather have an antique-type sewing cabinet than a new craft cart. The old ones are made of solid wood and are much better quality than the new laminate-covered particle board most places seem to sell. And they cost less.

 

Tonight, I set the sewing machine up on a TV tray in the spare room. It's not ideal or even a long term solution, as it's kind of wobbly and there's not enough room. But it will do for now.

 

 

A few months ago, I bought fabric to replace the tapestry side of the couch throw pillows. They don't match my living room decor. I cut the fabric for all four pillows, finished one, and set the project aside. (Probably because I needed the kitchen table!) I did another pillow tonight, and realized that in order to make the new pillow not be lumpy, I have to re-fluff the poly fill before cramming it back into the case and sewing it up.

 

 

In other words, I have to tear the stuffing to shreds.

 

Here we go again

Ages and ages ago, back before the days of Ravelry (a knitting website/social network-I know, sounds weird, but just accept that there's probably a social network for anything, and go with it), I had a knitting blog. Just like lots of other people did; I could share what I was working on, where I got my ideas, show off what I'd accomplished. And then most of us moved over to Ravelry for the forums and databases, or life got busy, or we just got lazy, and the knit blog thing really fizzled out. There are still some left and going strong, but as you can see, I hadn't posted anything here for three years or so. I've decided to bring it back and make it less of a knit blog and more of well, just a blog. Only time will tell if I post more than a few times in three years or not.




So what's going on the the Melissa neck of the woods? Well, I'll tell you.

About two weeks ago, I got suckered into fostering a dog for the Crittenden County Animal Shelter, and brought home a border collie/lab mix named Skye, although I've been calling her Katie because it seems to fit her better. She's a half-grown puppy, but I honestly have no idea how old she is; six months, maybe? She's lively but still pretty laid back and really cute and friendly and she's going to make someone a great dog. (If you know anyone looking for a dog, call me!)

I grew up with a dog and have had one of my own for the past three years, but hoo-boy, she's still a puppy and I didn't know what I was getting in to. Puppies pretty much do whatever strikes their fancy. It means they do really cute things like chase their tails or snuggle up for pats. But, puppies chew. Puppies don't come housebroken. Puppies dig. Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it. She's chewed a pair of glasses and an electric razor that was still plugged into the wall, and my good headphones and yarn and a pair of handknit socks and those are just the first things that come to mind. And I think I might have cleaned up some puddle every day for the past two weeks.

I put her outside this morning with a bowl of food so that she could eat and then do her business while I took a shower and got ready for church, without having to worry about any accidents. This is what I found when I finished and went to bring her in. Doesn't she just look so pleased with herself?

Yes, that's a duck in the dirt. It's a stuffie I bought for Zen a few years ago. He'd broken the squeak almost immediately, and Katie's now eviscerated the thing and it's become a duck...pelt. Whatever. Zen does that to his toys, too. If I remember right, my parent's dog Meeko did that with several stuffies or a pair of bunny slippers or something, too.

In other news, I've learned a lot about the plumbing in my house lately. A few weeks ago, I noticed a drip from the bathtub faucet, and set about learning how to fix it. I think it's a pretty simple matter of replacing some parts in the handle, so a $5 or $35 fix, depending on how much I have to replace. That led me to finding out that what I thought were the hot and cold shutoffs for the house, well, aren't. The hot water valve worked, to some extent. It shut off water to the kitchen and the bathroom, but not the laundry room, which, along with the hot water heater, are located in a part of the house that was added on sometime after the house was built in 1929. The other valve, which I expected to shut off the cold water, didn't do anything, leaving me without a way to shut off the water to my house if there were an emergency, because I couldn't find any kind of control outside, either.

I put out a call on Facebook and asked around at work for recommendations for a plumber, and got a few names. The first guy came out last week, and to be honest, I was less than impressed. I've never done anything with plumbing and don't really know much about it, but I felt like he wasn't listening to me. Maybe because he was dismissing my ignorance, but I want to be a responsible homeowner, and if I'm going to be paying someone to do work for me, I want them to help me have at least a basic understanding of what they're going to be doing. And I had my doubts that he knew what he was talking about. I told him what I'd bought to fix the leak in the faucet myself and I would have expected a plumber to say, "oh, yeah, that's an easy fix; I do it all the time," but he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. And then when we looked under the sink at the valves, the things he was telling me about how the water was set up just didn't make sense. The work he recommended doing involved replacing the valves in the kitchen and adding shutoffs above the hot water heater, and along with fixing the bathtub, would have come to about $450.

I didn't feel good about it, so over the next few days, I kept researching, checking out plumbing books from work and checking with the city and state government agencies here in town that govern construction to see if maybe they had plans for the house. No dice, but I learned that the guy I'd been working with wasn't even a licensed plumber at all! That sealed it. I called him and canceled the job, and had someone else that a coworker recommended out on Friday.

It was a totally different experience. The second guy came across as very competent and familiar with houses and setups similar to mine. I understand a lot better how things work in my house. I learned that the valve that I thought didn't do anything actually works--it shuts off the water going back to the addition, which is actually a sensible thing, given the layout of the house. There isn't a homeowner shutoff; they weren't standard procedure in the 1920's and 30's, but he showed me where the city shutoff is and how it works. He recommended digging up the pipe leading from the main to my house and adding a shutoff on my side of the meter. It's still going to cost about the same to fix, but it's only changing one valve, instead of four. Actually, I think I dodged a bullet, as the fixes the first guy was proposing wouldn't have done anything to solve the problem at all, because he was starting from a totally wrong assumption about where the water came in. It would have been $450 to that guy and $450 to someone else to correct it.

So blah blah blah, this is long enough. Work continues to be fun and life is good and it's hot and we need more rain. The Olympics are going on in London, but I haven't watched any of it. PBS doesn't carry it and that's the only channel I can get on my TV. The one thing I kind of wanted to see was the opening ceremonies, but the internet was out that day, so I couldn't watch it online, either.

I am participating in the Ravellenic Games, though. It's kind of a knitting tribute to the Olympics--pick a project that challenges you and try to get it all done--start to finish--between the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic games. It's been going on for several years and it used to be called the Ravelympics, until the USOC sent a cease-and-desist letter to the people who own Ravelry. It was kind of a fiasco because they have the right to the tradmark of the name Olympics or anything like unto it, it seems, but the letter was rather rude, condescending, and insulting to knitters. (Don't make knitters mad--they're armed with lots of sharp, pointy objects). Whatever. The name was changed and people moved on.

I'm working on a throw made out of leftover yarn, mostly from all the socks I've made over the years. Pretty, huh? No, I haven't done all that since Friday. My "event" is to make 48 of those squares.

And that's it for now.

 

Back again

I haven't blogged in ages, but I'm still knitting.

I think I'm probably moving in December, so I'm trying to do some clean up. So I've been going back to the UFO's I have laying around and finishing them off, as well as work from my stash.

I finished all the projects I had on the needles in April, as well as some new ones.

(Aren't the buttons just ADORABLE?)





I only finished my friend's scarf last week. I blocked it last night and gave it to her at church today. I must admit I was gratified to see her so pleased about it!
I forgot to take a photo of the stealth swap project I was working on. I started knitting up the KnitPicks Fedora I bought in April. I'm so enamored with steeking that the only thing I could decide about the pattern was that I was going to knit it in the round and cut it up the center to make a cardigan!

I've decided to make Pink Lemon Twist's Bristow Cardigan, but the construction is so different I guess the only Bristow part is the stitch pattern. The rest of it is just a percentage sweater from EZ's Knitting Workshop. I think I might try to do the seamless set-in sleeves, because I already have two cardigans with a round yoke. I've finished the body and I'm about halfway done with one sleeve. It's been holding lately while I finish UFO's from my basket.

Itchy fingers

I've got so many things on the needles that need to get done: a pair of socks for a lady at church, a scarf for my best friend, a non-bloggable project for my Loopy Ewe swap partner, my tangled yoke cardigan, and who knows what else. But all I want to do is start swatching for a new sweater!



I just got some yarn in yesterday from KnitPicks--the Merino Style in Fedora--and I think I'm going to make the February Lady Sweater.

But this yarn is DK weight, and FLS calls for worsted weight yarn. So I'm going to have to tweak the pattern, and that means knowing my gauge.

But I have to finish the other things first. Well, maybe not the scarf, but definitely the ??? and the socks. And I ought to finish one sweater before casting on for another.

What Makes a Good Blog?

90% of the blogs I read happen to be blogs about knitting or spinning. Cara of January One pointed out a blog post by Kathryn about the Knitting Blog Class of 2005. Kathryn went through a Bloglines report from April 2005 and made a list of the knitting blogs that were linked on the site (there were over 1700 of them!) and followed the links to see how many of them were still being actively updated and how readership had changed in the last four years. Only about 1/3 of the original list were left. I've heard of most of them and read several. (Update--I misunderstood the original post, and incorrectly thought that Margene had done all that hard work--thanks for the correction, Kathryn!)

So what makes these blogs last when the majority of them died out? I have several ideas. My blog certainly hasn't been very good lately, so these thoughts are mostly for my own benefit.

I think that the most important thing is that the author updates frequently. Probably no matter how witty and entertaining and informative the posts are or how beautiful the pictures, no one is going to regularly come back if you only post once in six months. (Ahem.) RSS feed readers do almost give you a second chance; if someone likes what they see they can just subscribe and your posts are automatically sent to them. If they had to manually come back and you never updated, you'd be simply out of luck. However, the RSS readers aren't a guarantee of readership. I know that every few months I go through the list of blogs in my reader and thin out the ones I don't remember reading lately.

A second important factor is that the author of the blog actively posts and comments on the blogs of other people. It's free advertising—often if people like your comment, they'll follow the link back to see if they like what else you're writing.

Third, the blogs that I tend to keep in my RSS reader are the ones that I have some connection with. Either I really like the quality of the author's work—the things they make or how they photograph them, or that the way they write about them is clear and clever and humorous. The blogs I read that aren't knitting blogs tend to belong to family and friends. They're things like places to update family photos and read the news about what's going on. One blog is by an artist friend from college who has the most beautiful, deep, thoughtful posts. I love reading what she has to say—I always feel enlightened and refreshed when she posts something new!

I don't yet have any library blogs in my feed reader, but I imagine that that the same kinds of principles will apply—are they well-written, with info that inspires or teaches me something new? Are they kept current, especially if they contain information about events that apply to me? Do they link to places that really are of interest to me? Does the author respond to reader feedback—can I make some sort of connection with the author—whether it be an individual or someone acting on behalf of the library?

If so, it's probably a good blog.

Weekend Knitting

My little sister got married this past Saturday (Congrats, sis!)

I got to spend a lot of quality time with family that lives far away from me.

And I got to spend hours and hours sitting and knitting--in the airport, in the plane, in the car. I finished up a garter-stitch scarf in handspun and started a new pair of socks.

I'm also working on the Mystery Beret (Ravelry link) in some bubblegum pink handspun.

Baby Blankie

The sweater I was working on has been put on hold for the last couple of months to work on a baby blanket for a former coworker. Several of us at work put our money together to buy the blanket, and one of the girls wanted to learn how to knit, so she's making one stripe and I've done the others.

Now I'm trying to decide whether I want to put the stripes I've knit together to form diagonal squares of color, or more randomly. Any thoughts?

New Semester, New Sweater!

Sorry, no photos today.

Classes started up again last week. I've decided to cut back on my job and go back to school full-time. At the rate I was going, it would have taken me six years to finish a two-year program.

What that means for me is lots and lots of reading time, so I've started a new sweater. This time around I'm making Elizabeth Zimmerman's Fair Isle Yoke Sweater. I still need to get the book that the yoke pattern is in, but I still have time. The body and sleeves of the sweater are from the Knitting Workshop book, which I have. When I finish that part of the sweater and am ready to start the color work, then I'll check with the library or buy the book.

Happy Birthday, America!

From my back patio, I can see a pretty good fireworks show on the Fourth of July. It's by no means a professional show, but whoever it is setting them off buys the BIG ones. It's rained all day, so it was nice to sit under the shelter of my upstairs neighbor's balcony and still get to see the fireworks display.

I have always been happy that I was born and raised and live in the United States of America. This year, as I watched the fireworks, the thought struck me that I am very grateful, too. I am grateful that the sounds of explosions and rockets whizzing through the air are not accompanied by air raid sirens. I am grateful that they shoot harmlessly into the sky, not into the homes of families in my neighborhood. I am thankful that they are set off in joy and fun and celebration, rather than in malice and hatred and revenge.

I am reminded again that this is a wonderful place to live, and I am grateful to be here.

Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.

Halfway...I think...

(Insides of the Scarlet Woman Sweater)

One of the advantages of marrying off all your roommates (three in as many years--they all live with me and then decide they want to get married--what's that say about me?) is that suddenly you have a ton of space to block things on the floor, and no one will care because it's not in the way!

The photo above is skewed--it looks like the armscye on the right is bigger than the other. I actually measured it and it's SMALLER; I think it's just the light and how I'm standing.

I'm finished with the Scarlet Woman sweater pattern as written and now I'm on my own for the sleeves. This is where it gets scary, because not only have I never designed my own sleeve caps or sweater yet, I've never MADE a sweater with sleeve caps before. The only sweaters I've done recently were round yoke sweaters (Tangled Yoke Cardigan) and raglan sweaters (Eris), both of which had the sleeves knit into the sweater as the pattern went along.

So I'm a little nervous! I think I'm going to wait for the body to dry, then flip it over and recheck my gauge on the stockinette portion. I really want to finish this sweater (it's been in my WIP list for almost six months) and I'm SOOO close I can smell it! But I also want to take my time and do the proper math and make sure it's right. I tend to get lazy and call things "good enough" and then, when the sweater is done, it doesn't look as good as I had planned. I want this one to be GOOD, not just good enough.

Long Tail Cast On

When my grandma taught me how to knit ages and ages ago, she taught me the long-tail cast on. But it was nothing like the method you see in the books--that one took me years to figure out, and it didn't click until I learned how to knit Continental style.

The way my grandma taught me is more suited to the English style of knitting. It involves wrapping a single loop of yarn around your left thumb, then knitting that loop like you would if it were a regular stitch on a needle. It's not as fast as the classic textbook method, but it might be easier to visualize how it works. If you struggle with the long-tail cast on, hopefully this will help.




There's also a good video of this method at KnittingHelp.com

Maryland

Just like what felt like MILLIONS of other people, I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this past weekend. It was my first time, and I think I did pretty well. I stayed within my budget, and got most of the things I wanted. And that's fine with me--I can't get it all or I wouldn't have anything else to look forward to!

I went to the Ravelry meetup on Saturday, and got a button, but my name was on the missing page of M's, so I didn't get a cool Ravatar Sticker to put on the button.

I got a picture with Mary-Heather, and I posed with Jess and Casey, too, but that picture seems to have never actually happened. Oh well...

I'm lucky enough to have an aunt and uncle who live ten miles away from the Howard County Fairgrounds, so I got to stay in a lovely home with a very gracious host and hostess and eat home-cooked meals instead of a big impersonal hotel. I carpooled with someone who got into one of the pre-festival workshops, so while she went to class, I got to hang out with my aunt and uncle. My aunt and I went shopping, did some quilting, I started teaching her how to knit, and I just basically relaxed.

Here's what followed me home from Saturday:

A Spinners Control Card and an Inch Gauge/Diz from Carolina Homespun (no pictures, sorry).

I finally caved and signed up for a subscription to Interweave Knits. I've been meaning to for quite a while--especially because I always seem to end up buying the issues individually, anyway!)

Some GORGEOUS laceweight yarn from Tess' Designer Yarns

Some souvenir sock yarn (purchased at a great little yarn store during the week, not at the festival itself): Colinette Jitterbug and Araucania Ranco Multi. Both of these are much brighter than my photos show (especially the Jitterbug--it's quite loud, actually).


And what I really came for--lots of great fiber! (It doesn't look like a lot in these photos, but I think it's more than double what I had before.)

I started spinning up the Louet fiber. It's practically spinning itself! Most of the time, I tend to spin sockweight or laceweight yarn, so I'm really trying hard to do something a little bigger; I think this one might turn out more like a sport weight. It's so soft! I think I'll have to order some more.

One Hundred

Wow--This is post number one hundred! It's strange to think that I've written that many. So to celebrate, I'll show you some new things in my house today:

First up: New socks!

BFL Socks, just a plain toe-up sock, but with Wendy's No-Picking-Up-of-Stitches Heel

Next: NEW BIKE!!!!!

Breezer Villager U-Frame Bicycle

I bought this at Pedal the Planet in Lexington, KY. I'm very excited about the bike. I think it's a very good-looking. And I've heard a lot of good things about the company. My own experience has been excellent. I've been e-mailing lots of questions to the company, and I have always gotten a thorough response the next day.

Anyway, now I just want the weather to be a little bit warmer!

All Done!

That was fast!

I used just over a ball and a half of Rowan Handknit Cotton for this project; I still have a ball and not quite a half left--what else can I do with it?

So Much Fun!

My brother and his wife had a baby this past Thursday. It's my first nephew, so I wanted to make him something special--I have booties and the Baby Surprise Jacket and a baby blanket in my queue at Ravelry, but nothing was jumping out at me. The booties I thought were cute seemed too girly, and I didn't want to buy Elizabeth Zimmerman's book just for one pattern (I will at some point, I just wasn't ready to do it now.) So I browsed some more and I found just the thing: Enter Elijah

(isn't it ADORABLE?!?)

This little elephant is perfect. My brother and his wife and baby live a couple thousand miles away from me, so I'll probably only get to see them once a year. I hope that it will be a favorite toy that he'll carry around with him all over the place. If I'd done something to wear, he'll have outgrown it before we can say "boo!"

I've never made a knitted toy before--this is fun! It's going so quickly; I've already finished the head and probably a third of the body. I still have the arms and legs and ears and then embroider the eyes, but I think I can definitely have this done by the time I go out to visit in April.

I definitely want one for myself. When I was at the yarn store today getting the yarn for the baby's Elijah, I saw they had some Rowan Calmer on sale at 40% off. It's a pretty color, kind of greenish-gray, and it will make a cute little elephant. Mine will have those little plastic bead things in its legs and arms and bottom that make it a little heavier and floppier. I didn't want to use them on the baby's; I wouldn't want them to be able to work their way out of the softie and into his mouth!

Knitting away

I've got a bad case of startitis. I've got one sweater, two scarves, two pairs of socks and one lace project all on the needles. I don't think that I have photos of all of them, but this is a start:

First up is the Scarlet Woman sweater. The link is for a tank, but I decided that I'd rather have a sweater than a tank. I've finished the front and have about twenty rows of the back ribbing done. There are quite a few articles online about how to figure out how to make set-in-sleeves, so hopefully this will turn out like I have in mind.

I've finished the first of the 3x3 Cable socks I started a while back. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Solids in Cherry Red. I'm slightly concerned that I'm not going to have quite enough to finish the second sock, but thanks to the wonder that is Ravelry, I can find people who have used this yarn and hopefully one of them will have leftovers that they'd be willing to sell to me. The label didn't seem to have a dye-lot listed, so hopefully the color will be a match. And if not, it shouldn't be too bad--it will only be the end of a toe and that will stay in my shoe anyway.

I've been itching to start a lace project lately, so tonight I cast on for the Adamas Shawl. I'm using some red cashmere recycled-sweater yarn on eBay from The Twice-Sheared Sheep.

Still here

I haven't blogged in forever but it's definitely not because I haven't been knitting.

I've finished a pair of monkeys.

Socks that Rock in "Gingerbread Dude"

I'm also working on two other pairs of socks. (Sorry, no photos of them tonight!) One pair is a little more complicated than the other. It's got cables and moss stitch between, and that one stays in my purse to work on at lunch or before class, etc. The other stays at home and is just a plain stockinette sock to work on when I'm reading.

I also started a sweater. My parents gave me a set of KnitPicks Options needles for my birthday and enough Telemark yarn to make a sweater. I've decided to make a version of the Scarlet Woman tank and I'm going to add set-in sleeves to make it a sweater. I hope it works!

Mystery box

I got a package in my mail box the other day from the Loopy Ewe.

It kind of threw me off for a moment--I didn't remember ordering anything from there recently. But then I opened the package and found this:

A pair of sock blockers! There was also a note from Sheri or one of the Loopy Elves to let me know that the blockers came from my Secret Pal, Gabrielle.

Thanks, Gabrielle! (I didn't get your blog address, so I can't link to you) Now I just need to get back to knitting some socks so that I can try them out!

Thanks again!

Good news bad news

I'm as finished as I'm going to be.



I thought it was too long, so I decided to try to felt it just a little, to shorten it up some. However, I forgot that the button bands were picked up and knit sideways from the edges. So, while most of the sweater shortened up as I'd wanted it to, the button bands did not. It's turned out kind of a combination of the Tangled Yoke Cardigan and the Tilted Duster.

After thinking I'm pretty much done, I just don't have the desire to cut off the button bands (I don't think they'd frog very well since they're slightly felted) and pick up fewer stitches.

BUT...my little brother and his wife are expecting their first baby in January, so I might just give the sweater to my sister-in-law. I think the angled bottom would look kind of cute over her pregnant belly...right?

Giving Thanks

I checked the mail right before I left home on Wednesday night. I love it when there's a key in my mailbox--it means there's a package for me! Wowza, was there ever! It was from my secret pal, full of fabulous things.

I even liked the packaging. Check it out--the box is patterened inside! The tissue paper was lovely--chocolate browns and shades of blue from kind of a slate gray to indigo.

Inside, there was lots of fun stuff: A skein of Trekking XXL in Burgundy and Chocolate. I've been wanting to try out the Trekking yarn, but haven't seen a color I liked until this one!

A lovely reddish Lantern Moon project bag. This is one of my favorite colors (can you see my couch in the background? It's almost the same color!

A package with soaps, lotion, chapstick, and a sewing kit and a thimble. The brand is called "Plain and Thimble"--great name!

And a great multicolored journal-type book (the cover is striped, and the pages inside are the colors of the cover). I don't know what I'm going to write in it yet, but something will come to me, I'm sure.

Thanks, Secret Pal!!