OMG it's been over a month

Hey all,


There hasn't really been anything interesting or exciting to talk about, except the magic of allowing a new furry little person into your life. She is a little angel. Maybe the Angel of Destruction and Insomnia.


Here are some pictures to make up for some of it:














Now back to work.

New Kitty!

Orion and I have added added a member to our family.





Meet Tatiana, our little kitten from the shelter. We took her home on Tuesday, and she has settled in quite nicely. She is eating from her dish, uses the litter box correctly, and loves all her new toys. She's still a little scared after a night alone in the living room, since she won't come sleep in the bedroom, but I think she's decided our place is okay. She's even purred a couple times.


More photos can be seen on this slideshow.

Happy Halloween!!!

This is totally not knitting, but I thought y'all might want to see my costume.











It is surprisingly expensive to go goth.

Fast blanket

Okay, can't talk long cuz I've got to get to work, but here is what I've accomplished this week.





This is the Hemlock Ring Blanket from Brooklyn Tweed.


As always, before blocking, the lace pattern looked like ass.





But after blocking, even clumsy, unsophisticated blocking like mine, the project looked right pretty.





And finally, the socks that I've been working on. I worry that they are a little tight, but I think they should be okay.





Now off to work!

That didn't last long

I've cast on three projects since the last post, and I haven't finished a single one of the projects that had been hanging over my head. But I'm an adult now, and I don't have to finish my stuff if I don't want to!


I think everyone should take a look at this site. Awesomest useless knitting ever. If I could go to the gallery show, I would.


So yesterday, instead of working (which I really should have been doing), Orion and I went on a road trip to Devil's Lake State Park, going over the utterly creepy cable-driven Merrimac ferry. After that, we came home and watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with RiffTrax. We then were trying to figure out what else Gene Wilder had been in, and saw an ad for Nightmare Before Christmas 3D. Within ten minutes we were out the door and on the way to the theater. It was an awesome day, full of hyperlinks. Maybe that will make up for the lack of pictures.

Ravelry Stole Your Bloggers

So if you knit, and you haven't signed up for Ravelry yet, you are probably wondering why your bloggers aren't talking quite as much. All of our time is on ravelry. All of my new FOs are on ravelry. I swear, I think I've left my mind on ravelry a few times there. Plus, my work hasn't decided to firewall that one yet, but they won't let me sign in to blogger, so that one is easier to get to. Sign up.


Things have been going well here: Mom and Ken visited, headaches have been reduced, weather finally got Seattle-style (no more insane heat!). I still have stuff in storage from Austin, and that has been nagging at me. But things are now... calmer. (Not to be confused with Rowan Calmer.)


!!! FOs !!!


Okay, so it doesn't have the stuffing yet, but that's with the Austin stuff:



Oh yeah, you see it:



I have also finished the pair of socks I had been working on ages ago. No second sock syndrome for me!



Okay, so I guess that isn't a whole lot of FOs for the 2 weeks or so that I've been absent from ya, but it seemed like I was finishing like a madwoman lately. I'm tired of having all these unfinished projects over my head, so nothing is getting cast on until everything is off my needles (maybe I'll make an exception for the mystery stole. That would just be too mean.

FO!!!!

Yay! I finally finished something!





This is the Notre Dame de Grace sweater from Interweave Knits. I like it a whole lot. It was fun to knit and it is snuggly and warm. Of course, since I made it with angora, it also sheds amazingly. Still, I love it.


Here's another pic:





The kimono has been sleeping a bit while I've finished this up. I guess I just wanted to get something done. Goodness knows MS3 isn't getting done any time soon. The white guinevere shawl ended up so badly I couldn't even frog it and had to throw it away.


In other news, I've been hurting a lot less lately. I have an MRI on Friday, though. Wish me luck.

Mad Kimono Fiend!

So much awesome Kimono-ness!

I'm baaaaaaaack!

Hey there y'all!


So the interweb is back up and running in the Bawdon household, and we all say thankya. Now I can play more with Ravelry.


Since it would take a while to talk about all of my projects, I'll just show you some pictures:


Yarn-Over Cable socks from Sensational Socks:



Notre Dame de Grace from Interweave Knits Summer 2007:



And finally, Cables and Lace Kimono Wrap from Sweaterbabe:



The last one is part of this awesome KAL. They have the most beautiful site design, I swear. I'm making it out of pure merino instead of the merino/viscose/nylon/cashmere/angora blend they call for. I don't like Classic Elite Princess. I don't think I would be happy spending a couple months knitting with it.


There are other projects I'm working on, but I haven't so much taken pictures for those. The mystery stole marches ever onward, but it doesn't look any different, just longer. I'm also knitting a scarf for The Red Scarf Project. It's just a red K1P1 scarf, though, so I don't think it's all that interesting.


In non-knitting news, the CT scan was clean, but the headaches continue. I did learn not to take allergy headache meds for it, though, since last night I couldn't sleep and started ranting about how we "weren't in California" and about "penguins, stoles". It sounds really funny now, but I can tell you it was scary as hell last night, when I felt like I was loosing my mind. I guess it's back to the narcotics for me...


OOOOOOOoooooOOOOooOOO I almost forgot! Orion, the best husband ever, gave me my birthday present: a ball winder and swift!!!!!!!!! Isn't he the best husband ever?!

Stupid Interweb

Just an update -- My internets is currently broken. Orion and I moved, and the forsaken phone company won't hook up our service for another two weeks. I can't log on to this site from work, and it takes so long to load pages that I want to tear my hair out using dial-up, so I'm a bit stuck. I want everyone to know that I'll give complete updates on all my projects as such as soon as I can. I miss you!


Also, thank you so much to everyone who leaves a comment for me. I feel quite lonely over here in Wisconsin, and every note is a big happy pill for me. Thank you so much. <3

Have I lost my mojo?

Two weeks have passed since last we spoke, oh non-existant reader. I suppose that if I wanted more people to read the blog, I would 1. write more often, and 2. get the word out about it. Instead, I just wonder why my posts have 0 comments when I look at them every hour. Imagine that. ;-)


I haven't really been blogging because I haven't really been knitting. Oh I've been buying yarn all right. I've bought enough hand-dyed for at least six pairs of socks. However, I keep getting sick. And moving out of Austin.


There is one pair of socks that I was working on that you will never see here. It seems that everywhere I turned, someone was talking about Jaywalker socks. So I started knitting up a pair. I've seen some beautiful versions of the sock. Mine was not one of them. It was too tight for the intended recipient, and it bunched at the instep. The ribbing didn't stay straight - it did this weird scallopy thing. I was having no fun knitting it. So two inches from the toe, I frogged it all.


My Jaywalker Socks:





I want to repeat: There are beautiful versions. The sock pattern is not to blame. Something was just off. I think my needles were probably too small for the yarn, that my double decrease stitches were too loose, and my kf&b increases were too tight. It is a project to try again in the future.


So, on to the other things I've been working on. I started on a shawl. I think I was feeling guilty about not knitting a pi shawl for Elizabeth's Year. Here is what I'm knitting in its stead:





I've been slowly sewing up the grey cardi. It looks as if the arms are going to be way too long.





And finally, slow progress on the mystery stole:





Things have gotten...weird...since the newest clue. I have decided, as Melanie suggested, to just work the clue I'm on, then repeat the process in order to make a symmetrical stole.


So, anybody want me to talk about anything?

Knitting at work

There have been lots of meetings and classes lately, so I've managed to finish a sock in about a day.




I don't really feel bad for knitting at work, since it is actually keeping me paying attention in class when otherwise my thoughts would stray (as they do for many of my coworkers), but I think it might have been a tiny bit distracting for the presenter yesterday. Whenever she would pause or search for a word, she would stare at my sock. I couldn't figure out whether I was the cause or the symptom of her distraction.


In other news, I've been listening to so many knitting podcasts. I keep thinking that eventually I'll catch up and NPR will get its chance again, but then I find another one. And of course I'll have to listen to all of those as well. My current favs: Cast On, Lime & Violet, and Sticks and String. They can all also be found on iTunes, which is where I found them.


The only thing I have against them is that they all play from the podsafe network. Of course I think it's a wonderful thing that there is such a thing and that they use it, but they all have similar tastes, very dissimilar to my own. I think if I hear Skullcrusher Mountain (look towards the bottom) again I will scream. I think at least three of my podcasts have played it.


Anywho, on to the second sock!

The ugliest sweater

This is the sweater of dooooooooooom!

I made this sweater from Charmed Knits, which has patterns inspired by the Harry Potter series. This was supposed to be a Weasley sweater, done in almost magical time. It took me about 4 days, but I hadn't had time to quite finish it before the party on Friday. I had it all seamed and had the ends woven, but hadn't had time for the neckline. The results, as you can see, are so ugly that I busted up laughing and refused to let Orion wear it to the party. That would just have been mean.

Maybe I'll finish up that neckline and try to auction it off on ebay or something. Give it to the homeless. Anything, just to get it out of our home and out of my sight!

Lots of knitting, but not much to show

Considering how long it's been since the last time I've posted, you would think that I would have a ton to show for it, right? Wrong. I've done a lot of knitting, but I don't feel like I've gotten very far.


So here are the socks made from that beautiful Interlacement yarn:

I had wanted to make them toe up two at a time, but had messy problems with the cast on. I should have documented that, but was so frustrated at the time that I didn't think of it. What happened was that the endmost stitch kept getting longer and longer. No matter how I tried to tighten it, it kept getting bigger. I finally gave up when it was about an inch long. Then I would frog my work and do the same thing all over again. Ech.


Here is the progress on my mystery stole:

What we have here is a little in on clue 3. I forgot to take a picture after finishing clue 2, but that was only about 6 rows ago. I couldn't block it for this pic, though, because I would have had to turn on the light in the living room, which would have woken Orion. I can't wait to have that one-bedroom. I'm tired of being forced into the kitchen every morning.


Here is a soft little side project I did because it was mindless enough to bring to my first Stitch'n'Bitch meeting:

As a sidenote, the people there were awesome, but I had unwittingly stumbled in on bring-your-kids-to-SnB night. I have decided that I shouldn't have kids. I just don't know how to deal with them.


And finally, here is some lovely yarn that I bought since I loved that sock yarn so much:


The purple is my first Koigu. I had been eyeing this particular colorway for a while now, but hadn't wanted to pony up the $24 a pair of socks costs. After feeling just how nice it is to work with yummy sock yarn, I caved. The green is Jitterbug, and costs about the same. They are both so nice that sometimes I just touch the yarn. Does that make me crazy?


My final project, not documented here, is to make a Weasley sweater for the Harry Potter release party on Friday. I decided to do this Sunday night, rushed out to buy Charmed Knits (a book of Harry Potter-inspired patterns), and went to Michael's to buy some cheap-ass Red Heart yarn. 5 days. I had originally, insanely decided that I was going to make two of these sweaters. It would have been really hard, but not impossible. They have no shaping and are drop-shouldered, so they go pretty quick. However, I got so sick yesterday that I couldn't knit at all. There's no way that I can do it now. At least Orion will have his sweater. He's letting me read it first, so it's only fair that he gets the awesome costume. Even if it is Red Heart.

Ants

The first clue for Mystery Stole 3 is finally out!!!!!

Here is the first half:



I'm using Jaggerspun wool/silk and a teal 8 seed bead. However, this is my first major lace project, so it takes me a really long time to get stuff done, and a lot of concentration. And perhaps a bit of swearing.

The grey cardi was almost done when I mysteriously started running out of yarn. I bought what should have been plenty; I have been paranoid about this exact situation occurring. I don't know what happened there. In any case, I was pretty bummed about the whole thing since the yarn was expensive and I was sure that they wouldn't have any more. When I bought it about 2 months ago, I bought all but one or two of the balls in this lot. The knitting genie was smiling at me, though, because Lakeside magically had some left. I'll try to finish it up when I get done with the present MS3 clue.





For the final knitting news: I finished Orion's socks. Ope, no I didn't! GOTCHA!!! I had them all bound off, woven in and everything. He tried them on and one of them was at least 2cm too short. I cut the end off, and I'll add the proper length when I'm not so mad at them.




And here is the reason that I have been not been in touch with everyone this week:







If you will notice, those are hundreds of dead ants, lining my windowsill and frame. These are just a small sample of what I woke up to Monday morning. I felt something on my arm and woke to see a nasty little bug. I freaked out a bit about it and blew it off. A few groggy minutes later, I killed it on the wall above my bed with a paper towel. Then I happened to glance at the sill, where not one, not five, but hundreds of ants were streaming and swarming. It would have been bad enough if it had just been like an anthill, but no, there were also hundreds of winged ants beating themselves against the glass and buzzing around our room.

We alert maintenance, and God bless them, they were out that morning. But the ants proved too tough. They sprayed twice and laid out traps, but those ants were going nowhere. We stayed at a hotel one night, just so that we could get some sleep. They were only really bad in the morning -- the rest of the time the winged ones kept to themselves. Nothing brightens a day like waking up to a swarm of ants, though.

Finally, they called an exterminator on Thursday. I've decided that he and my dentist are my new heroes. I still have to wait 4 days before I can clean them up, but I can tough that out. We have to give the poison time to work.

KAL

Someone, possibly at Knitter's Review has turned me on to a mystery stole knit along. Part of the mystery is that now I have no idea who gave me the idea. In any case, it's like crack. None of the "clues" are out yet, but I have been reading all of the posts and looking at countless test swatches. I even did one of my own -- how unlike me!



If you want to join, do it soon. It closes to new members on July 6th.


Random Yarn PR0N!!!!!




I saw this just sitting there, looking all lonely at my LYS. It needed a home. It needed a purpose. I have given it both. Just one look, and I knew it was destined to be in MY home, on MY needles, ending up on MY feet. It was love at first sight.

There has been progress on the Swing Cardigan:



The fronts are done, and the sleeves are over halfway. After that, it's all finishing, baby.

As per Jen's suggestion, I discussed the possibility of hiring out the dirty work with the folks at Lakeside, but they weren't sure. I think they aren't used to machine sewing requests. If I can't get someone to do it, I'm either going to buy a sewing machine or come up with something ingenious. Maybe I'll put tiny buttonholes in the ribbon, sew them on, and then just use little buttons that don't really need a buttonhole... In any case, there is no way that this would be getting cut if I sew it by hand. I don't trust my hand-sewing that well.

Now off to arena football!!!!!




Just in case any of you were worried, I've finally located my little lost sock yarn. It was safely in my stash the whole time, snuggled under some acrylic that I would have sworn hadn't moved in at least 4 months.

Oh no oh no oh no

I finished the front of the grey cardi, and have therefore remembered why I stopped in the first place. The buttonholes are supposed to be machine-sewn and then cut. God help me, they're supposed to be CUT!!!! What am I going to do?

To be warm

So the wrap that I was making for the office is finished. I like how it turned out, but I don't so much like how I look in the picture:



For some reason, I never, ever, ever look good in pictures. The one for the staff info pages at work makes me look demented -- some sort of mad lady scientist. I really hope I don't look like that running around in the wild.

In other self-pity: I read a couple other knitting blogs (knitting is my obsession, after all), and they all seem to get so much more done than I do. I know they aren't knitting any more than me, since on the weekends I'm pretty much knitting constantly, so what is it they do? That wrap was mindless knitting. In the round, so very little purling, simple cable pattern, worsted weight yarn. It took me all weekend. For someone like Wendy, fingering-weight socks seem to take about 3 days of transit knitting, but I've been working on those socks for Orion now for two weeks! What gives?!

As someone in my LYS once told me, knitting is not a race. I think that's easy to say when you are probably faster than the person you're saying it to. ;-)

Bad bad blogging monkey!

Okay, I admit I've been a bad bad girl. I haven't posted anything in an unacceptably long time. I have very good excuses: I went completely out of town and didn't bring compy, and I started my brand new job. I've been focusing all my energies on the new job thingy. Each night, poor Orion welcomes a bedraggled grouchkin into his home who bears a striking resemblance to his wife. What can I say? I'm excited about the job, and this leads me to put a lot of energy into it.

During travel time, I have started up a pair of socks for my beloved. I didn't originally intend them to be an apology, but maybe they will make up in some small way for the fact that I get home too exhausted to even walk to McDonald's. Ech. I don't know what it is about me and socks. I always seem to fall in love with the lighter side of things. I'm always working at about 8 or 9 stitches an inch. Why can't I fall in love with a nice sportweight sock yarn?



Another fingering weight sock yarn bought during the Minneapolis trip:



There was one more, but it has mysteriously gone AWOL. We can't find it anywhere. I'm sure it will turn up, but I have this nagging fear that I threw it away when I tossed the bag it came in (you can't recycle plastic bags here for some reason).

I've also discovered that my office is exceedingly cold. I got some yarn to make a wrap, but I'm going to have to do something else to keep warm in the meantime...



In other updates, the cardi has been put on hold for some mysterious reason unknown even to me.



I also decided to bind off a blanket that I had been making for a baby who is now way too old for it. The blanket was supposed to end up at least twice as long as it is now, but I think it will make a nice lap warmer for carseats or carriers. It's soft and machine washable/dryable. Anyone know someone expecting a little boy?

The Back is Done!!!

So I got the back done for my lovely Swing Cardigan. Of course it still needs blocking -- I am so terrible about finishing my pieces. I never feel like weaving in ends or sewing up seams. I'm such a lazy knitter.



A while back I also did a lovely little lace skirt. I've long since finished knitting it, but it still needs blocking and some detailing. I can't seem to find a ribbon yarn that I want to use for accents. I tried to take some pictures of the semi-finished product while wearing it, but the camera angle made me look fat. Just kidding! My weight had nothing to do with it, it's just that the angle didn't show off the skirt very well, so Orion and I are going to try again later. But there's still a pic that can give you an idea:



This is the lace that edges the bottom. More on that when I can get a better pic.


In non-knitting info, here is my beautiful home:





We'll only be living here for a couple more months. We're moving to a one bedroom two doors down in August. I'm actually a little sad about it. I know it's only a studio and the kitchen is WAY too small for us, but I like our home.

The top news story on the local Fox channel for two days running: brats are 50 cents more expensive this year than last.