Friday, June 29, 2007

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.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

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.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

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?

Monday, June 18, 2007

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. ;-)

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

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?