Who wants Pi?

I did a semi felt of my Kitt Pi swatch last nightso I don't think I am dealing with superwash wool. There's stil alot of stitch definition, but hopefully I can get a better felt when I do it for real. I picked up some US 11 birch DPNs at my LYS yesterday, as well as some bobbly carryalong stuff to use for the brim. I started out using to strands of the dark blue yarn, and used that until the wee little ball of dark ran out - now I am switching that strand to the medium blue yarn. I purposely snipped a few of the threads in the medium blue skein before rolling it into a ball; I ened up with 2 little 12 foot or so lengths, and 3 larger balls of decreasing size. The amount of medium yarn in the largest ball is less than the dark yarn currently remaining, so when the medium runs out, strand #2 will be the light blue yarn. After the dark strand runs out, I will use light blue + medium blue. I will try to include some medium + medium as well as some light+light pairings, depending how much yarn I actually end up needing. This will probably be the project I take down to Seattle with me on Friday. Some of us can't wait.

Piece of Pi

I am currently working on a felting swatch for the Kitty Pi's. I'm using 1 strand of the Bartlett yarn on US7 bamboo dpn's. For reasons that are beyond explanation, I had decided to use scissors to open the package of yarn and not be careful with them. This led to me snipping through several threads on one skein of the wool. Which wasn't such a horrible thing, since I am just using those pieces for the swatch. I'll need to double up the yarn to make it "bulky". I think I will use 2 different colours, and the smaller ball that remains from the (slightly) mangled ball will allow me to "stagger" the blending of the colours. I just need to pick up some larger sized dpn's; hopefully I can hit Art of Yarn before it closes tomorrow. I will also need to pick up a zippered pillowcase. In Somewhat Cowl news, I have joined the front together; I did it while flying home this morning. I ended up twisting the stitches twice! But now it is set, and I am about 2 or 3 rows down. I need to switch to a shorter cord. I haven't gotten around to trying it on yet. Hell, I haven't gotten around to eating dinner. I need another set of hands and another set of eyes so that I can type + knit, or eat + knit, or eat + type. Once again, the camera is in another province, so no pictures tonight.

necessity is the mother of serendipity

Am currently midway through a trip back "home". I decided to take my Somewhat Cowl to work on during my 4 hour flight on Thursday, and then realized as I was driving to the airport that I had forgotten to brong any scrap yarn. When I took my knitting out, I decided that I could just use some of the really long cast on tail that I had not intentionally created. So I went into my makeup bag to grab my wee little travel nail clippers, and realized that they were still in another purse, since I had been using them to cut yarn during my trip to LA back in February. Since I only had one row to do before slipping the sleeves off of the needle, I resorted to splitting the 4 plies in 2, and then cutting the yarn with my teeth (one of my lower canines was chipped when I was a child, so it has a bit more of a point to it than the other one, and comes in handy sometimes). [posting of the project will follow - timing depending on whether my hubby brought the USB cable for the camera or not] Then, yesterday, I went to check out a hospital near here since we are thinking of relocating. I wore a spring coat over my outfit because I had to leave fairly early, and it was still on the cool side. I took the GO train there for 9, and left at around 3 (hubby picked me up in the car). We stopped at a power mall to pick up some wrapping stuff for the wedding gift (my father in law is getting remarried today - fodder for an entire blog entry of it's own!), and I realized that I had not taken my coat with me when I left the hospital. I had hung it on the back of an office door, and since the door was open, I had totally forgot it. Since I am wearing a sleeveless dress today, and it is likely to rain, this was a problem. So we went to the nearby fashion mall, and initially stopped in at Fairweather. There were some rain jackets on sale, a few of which were not half bad styles, but I didn't like any of the colours available. Granted, I only needed something that I could wear once, and then give away, but I was so pissed off at myself for making this mistake that I wasn't willing to buy something that wasn't something I would wear again. So we went to The Bay, and after much searching through the new spring stuff, I managed to find a lovely 3/4 length jacket in a cream colour with some gold stitching on the clearance rack. It looks like a 60's vintage coat; I think it's by Nygard. It's not perfect for the dress, but I really like it, as did hubby. The surprising this is that the sleeves were not horribly short despite the fact that it is a size 12petite! I have bought petite skirts and cropped pants in the past, but I'm used to the sleeves on regular sizes being too short for me. And, it ended up costing around $35, about $100 less than the original price. When we get home, I will see if the sleeves can be lengthened a bit. It's such a great jacket; I will be able to wear it with dressy stuff as well as with jeans. Here's me, the coat, and my handsome Hubby. Take note of the corsage that drove me crazy all day - Gerbera daisies are nice, but they suck as corsages - it's too vertical. I tried to bend the stem, but wasn't able to bend it to the right angle that would have made it wearable. I felt like I was walking around with a third boob.

Les Livres

I stopped by a used book store on my way home from the office today, because I wanted to pick up one of these for my French class: Before I even walked in the door, I saw this perched on the outside ledge of their window with the rest of the $2 books: Along with the dictionary, I picked these up as well: The semantics find was kind of ironic - French has fewer words than English (at least in daily usage), and there is much more care taken in the words used to create a phrase or sentence. There's even an Academy that has a mandate to determine the appropriate usage of language.

yarn theory

This is the coolest thing Using crochet to demonstrate hyperbolic space. I was walking through the radiology department this weekend, and a Discover Magazine caught my eye - the lead title was UNIntelligent design - are viruses the mother of all life? I then noticed the headline "knit the universe". So I pinched liberated the magazine. And there's a knitting pattern here I enjoyed the math courses I took in University - I think that's why I like pulmonary physiology. It may be a sad statement about my life that I looked at the knitting pattern and thought "That might make a good cat toy..." Actually, I am giving some thought to working on something like that on the plane when I fly East on Thursday for my DH's Dad's wedding. I think that my Somewhat Cowl will be at a point where I really should be trying it on. There's always the checkerboard tank, I guess... Speaking of the SC, I am almost at the end of skein #2, and am already starting to wonder if I should have bought more yarn (I bought 9). Still 3 skeins left at the site I bought it from, but it's a flat $9 for shipping. I wonder how it would look with the ribbing in a contrasting colour? Speaking of the DH - he doesn't like it when I knit in public around him. We had a chat about it this weekend, and he said it's because it is granny-like behavior. I then made him look at the following blogs, etc. to demonstarte that young hip people knit: http://lickmysticks.com/ http://valkryieknitthis.blogspot.com/ http://vampiregrapes.blogspot.com/ http://turtlegirl76.blogspot.com/ http://www.thisgirlknits.com/about.html http://www.domiknitrix.com/knittingblog.cfm http://knitandtonic.typepad.com/knitandtonic/ http://www.punkknits.com/index.html http://www.tryingtogrok.com/ http://www.insubordiknit.com

Absurdities

We went out to see Famous Puppet Death Scenes last night. I had expected it to be a bit more humourous, but I think it would best be summed up as "puppet theatre of the absurd". Interesting, though. The last scene was quite touching. The amazing this is how real the puppet movements look even when you can see the puppeteer(s) making the movement. The following part of the post will be much more meaningful once blogger decides it will actually upload my pictures. Must be all of that Easter internet traffic. This is "the Schnoz". It's a Kleenex box cover that I bought at our hospital gift shop, of all places. Made me laugh when I saw it. It lives in our "monkey bathroom". And the final absurdity: This was how far along I was on the Somewhat Cowl yesterday morning. I was able to knit for at least 2 or 3 hours yesterday(off and on). Here is what it looked like this morning. Can you see the difference? I'm almost at the point where I will be taking the sleeves off of the needle - which will at least decrease the number of stitches in each row. I haven't timed how long it takes to do a row yet because it would be too depressing. The nice thing about using my superlong Debbie cord is that I can just stretch the work out amy time I am finished a row to "try it on", rather than have to thread it onto yarn. Once I start knitting in the round, it might get a bit unwieldy to have so much spare cable; I wil see how it goes. Right now it feels like I will never reach that point.

Posting Pix!

Lorna's Laces Patagonia cotton Blue wool for Greedo Who doesn't feel like being photographed today Purple wool for Somerset I'm planning to use the blue and purple yarn to make them cat beds. I was initially going to make one for the 2 of them (still a possibility). Greedo always thinks that the most comfy place in the house is wherever Somerset is. So he will go sit right beside her (if not on top of her), and all of a sudden, Somerset is gone, and Greedo has taken her place. They do cuddle together on the couch as well.

Watch this space...

More yarn has arrived in the mail. Another busy week on call - opened one package in the hospital parking lot, and 2 travelled around in my trunk until last night when I opened them (needed scissors). I will take photos and post after I get back from work today. I hate being on call for holidays.

Misplaced at birth

Your Inner European is French! Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. Who's Your Inner European? I start my French classes this week (in preparation for the trip to Europe I plan to take this fall).

the yarn cometh...

I have started to recieve stuff in the mail from my recent ebay spree. Puctures should be posted by the end of the day tomorrow. I recieved my "jojoland" brown/blue combo yarn. Each ball is made of different combinations of brown and blue (with the exception of the one all blue and the one all brown). It looks like there is further variation within the ball. Not sure if this felts or not, but you would end up losing the details of the blended colour. I also received some skeins of handpainted yarn - I'm trying to figure out if there's enough for a Mobius project; each set of 3 skeins totals about 370 yards, I believe Three skeins are pink/purple/blue, and three are red/blue/"white" - which tends to have a reddish cast to it. The red is more orange-red than pure red. According to the seller, this stuff does felt.

Spring skiing, and more parental agony

This was what it was like on the ski hill today. This was what greeted us when we got home. I am sure he can't understand why we don't leave the comfy bed out for him on laundry days. I bet the best part was when it was all nice and warm from having just come out of the dryer... It is official - my parents are driving me INSANE. Mostly my Mom - my Dad isn't quite so bad - the worst part is that his hearing isn't the greatest, and he himself is a bit difficult to understand because he kind of mumbles. Right now every hair on my body is standing straight up because my mother is SMACKING HER LIPS AS SHE EATS A PIECE OF PASTRY!!! The worst part, is that she has been doing this for at least 15 minutes, because she is the slowest eater in the history of mankind. I swear to god - it is not a large piece of pastry, in fact, she cut the damned thing in half, and we shared it - I broke off bits of my piece to eat with my tea, and I couldn't make more than 6 pieces without using a sharp knife. I won't even bother outlining the myriad of things that she does that get on my nerves, except to say that she is the worst poker player EVER - who places a bet when all the cards are on the table and you KNOW that you haven't made any kind of a hand?? And I don't even care about poker!!! Must go to a happy place...

Parental visit

Yeesh - my parents are visiting, which is always stressfull, even though they try not to be any trouble. I will post some photos tonight or tomorrow, if it kills me. I bought this cool new purse at "Shoparama" this weekend, and it has side compartments that will hold a small knitting project - this didn't even occur to me when I bought it.