Is there anything left to blog about?

Trading Spaces

2010-08-14T14:51:00.000-04:00

So, I haven't blogged here in over a year. I doubt anyone is still checking this space, but in case you are, I'm starting a new blog over yonder. I'm not sure how faithfully it will be updated, but many things in my life have changed over the past year, and I think it's time for a fresh start. Tallyho.

3...2...1...

2009-05-07T22:07:00.002-04:00

The semester is aaaalmost over. Our last class is next week, and all we're doing is having a little party and presenting our final projects. W told us last class that he wants to try and keep things 'chill' since we're so close to the end. I think my fellow students probably need it more than I do; I know I've talked a lot about the stress this class has ignited in my belly, but I only had one to worry about. Most of my classmates are finishing up a course load of four or five classes, and everyone was looking peaky and pinched on Wednesday. Part of this may be the weather, too...let's make with the sunshine, please! Actually, it can be rainy and gross this weekend, because I plan on shoving my nose to the grindstone hardcore, getting all my figures done, putting together my project on Monday and Tuesday, and breezing into class on Wednesday well rested, with cups, plates and the final.

The final assignment is really not so intimidating, especially since he had us crank out one of these two weeks ago. A five to seven figure collection, with fabric and mood board. The only extra criterion was that the theme had to be another country or culture, which isn't exactly a restrictive requirement. I picked Lithuania, because it's where my great grandfather (on my dad's side) emigrated from, and I knew absolutely nothing about it. I still know very little about it, but I've discovered that their flag is red, gold and green, the weather is fairly mild, it's on the Baltic Sea, and there's a pretty enchanting castle on an island, called Trakai, that's a major tourist spot. Sooo...that's pretty sufficient for this project, I think.

I went out and got my fabric today (also buttons!) and I've got some good ideas. Ooh, plus, at least one of the designs will feature knitwear, and I swatched my swatch for that tonight. It's actually a design that I was planning on knitting up for myself, out of some of the yarn I scored at MDSW this year. I had doodled a few ideas for it whilst working my amazingly dull job, but I wasn't planning on using it for this project. Then, on Wednesday, we were having our usual "What's going on in the world of fashion" discussion in class. This is usually a pretty awkward endeavor, because W gets frustrated when no one has any news to report, but it seems like everyone in the class is so wrapped up in school that they're not all that jacked in. HOWEVER, this week, I decided to pipe up. It's the end of the semester, right? Anyway, after W and my seatmate A finished talking about the new fashion exhibit at the Met, I said, "Well, I'm not sure this is really all that fashion related, but I went to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last weekend," and bizarrely, W was like, "Oh wow, really? My sister went to that as well! Tell us about it."

So, I talked about the festival, and how it was a really big event in the knitting community, of which I am a part. Since I happened to have the gorgeous Hanami that Elspeth knitted for me, I pulled it out and talked about how two friends and I had all used the same pattern to knit for each other. W was intrigued to hear that knitting patterns exist, and also commented that my Elspeth-made Hanami was beautiful and, "Doesn't look hand-knit at all." (Whatever THAT means.) Then he asked me if I was planning on using hand-knitting in my designs in the future. "Because you should," he said. "Anything in this industry that makes you stand out is a big asset." I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of what he said. It's so funny--knitting is such a big part of my creative self, and I feel so tapped into it (Hello, Ravelry!), that sometimes I forget not all creative people knit, or know much about knitting. Anyway, after he said that to me, I took another look at the little doodles of the garment I had made, and realized that it really would fit well with my other ideas. I'll say nothing more here, except for the word, "YELLOW!"

Once the semester ends, I'll have about three months before the fall semester starts, and I do not intend to be a lazybones over the summer. I just joined The Jukebox pool on Flickr, and I'll probably start working on that once class finishes up. I've also been thinking about getting back into illustrating (I hate the word 'cartooning,' and they're really not the same thing at all.) It's something I really loved doing and I just let it fall by the wayside, but now that I've had this intensive drawing course, I think I could jump back into it. Plus, lots of knitting, of course. Basically, the mantra for this summer is to stay creative, stay productive, and unwind before the fall. Tallyho!

To see pictures of the amazing Hanami that Elspeth knit for me, and an uber cute shot of me, Elspeth and Ann together in our Hanamis, check out Elspeth's Flickr stream, starting HERE

Project: DEATH is in the details...

2009-04-29T21:48:00.002-04:00

Last week, W assigned us a project with virtually identically specs to that of the midterm. The only additional criteria were that the collection had to incorporate shine, and extra care should be taken with the hands. (These were the last two subjects we had covered in class. ) This project really kicked my ass, I gotta tell you. I'm not sure if it's because Clint left for Fort Dix last Tuesday, which is where he'll be until he leaves for Iraq in about two months, but focusing on this project really felt like pulling teeth. A few of the figures I drew and re-drew MANY times. I stayed up until 1AM on Monday to get all the figures drawn, couldn't sleep, and had to get up at 6 the next morning to get on for work. Needless to say, it's been a really stressful couple of days. BUT...it all paid off, thankfully, and now I get to relax and have a great time at MDSW this weekend!

For more comments, larger photos, etc. check out my Flickr photostream ;o

Anonymous Plurals

2009-04-27T08:32:00.003-04:00

World Wide Words, a fantastic e-zine about English, recently posted this classic poem illustrating all of the weird ways we pluralize words in English. I don't know why, but it just kind of tickled me.

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of mouse should never be meese,
You may find a lone mouse or a whole nest of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But a bow if repeated is never called bine,
And the plural of vow is vows, never vine.

If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

If the singular’s this and the plural is these,
Should the plural of kiss ever be nicknamed keese?
Then one may be that and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren,
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim,

So the English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the queerest language you ever did see.

URGENT: Cranky old man furious that zero and letter 'O' sometimes look similar

2009-04-25T16:08:00.005-04:00

So I'm on-call for work this weekend, and I'm also working on a project for class that is due next week. This does not make for a very relaxing weekend, especially since on-calls for work are looking less and less like being on-call, and more and more like working more hours for less money. I just got a call from this dude, who was clearly a cranky old man, possibly on a respirator. (Or whatever that thing is where you can only say a few words before having to take a deep breath). He had just signed up for Product-X, and was furious because the login creds sent to him by Product-X.com "weren't working."

I took a look at his username and password, and noticed that the password, which was randomly generated by the site, had a numeral zero in it. This is bizarrely a huge source of confusion for a lot of our customers, who can't seem to grasp that sometimes, a zero looks like an 'O', and if the password doesn't work with one, maybe they should try the other. I realize it's slightly confusing; Product-X is a total piece of crap. If I had my way, I would eliminate Product-X, since it is essentially a black hole for money and the time of employees, such as myself, who would rather spend their efforts on something profitable. Unfortunately, it is a part of my job to deal with customer issues revolving around Product-X, of which there are many. To be fair, these issues are just as likely to stem from Product-X's shittiness as they are from user error.

HOWEVER--there is no reason to be a rude bastard to a customer service person before you have even heard what she has to say. This guy had obviously decided it was his right to be an asshole to whatever idiot picked up the phone, because there's no way the person on the other end of the line would be helpful. After I (very nicely) told him that I'd been able to log in with the credentials he had been sent, I pointed out that the password contained not an 'O,' but the numeral zero. He seemed to have trouble grasping this concept for a few seconds, but when he finally cottoned on, hooo boy, he was fucking furious.

My reaction when people get angry on the phone like that is to just stay really calm and pleasant. I think I might have said something like, "Well, I know that sometimes they can look similar, but if you just try logging in with a zero instead of an 'O,' and let me know if that works, that would be great..." It's true, I actually had to tell someone on the phone that zeroes and 'O's share similar aesthetic traits. Let's not go into how most of the time, a zero is more oblong, and an 'O' is more round. He was livid that the randomly generated password, assigned to him by a website, had tricked him, and he was going to make his overblown complaints heard in the most obnoxious way possible, to someone with no choice but to listen.

It's funny, I don't feel that I've ever had a truly horrendous encounter with someone in a customer service position, and most of the time I feel that they really are doing everything possible to help me out. I think this is because I've discovered the trick to getting good customer service is to treat the person trying to help you LIKE A FUCKING HUMAN BEING. Be friendly on the phone, be self-deprecating, provide as much information as possible, and you will be rewarded in kind. Be someone that the person will actually WANT to help, not just the asshat they're going to try and get off the phone as soon as possible, because practically no one does that. They call assuming that the customer service rep is going to try and screw them over, and by god they're not going to let that happen. Ask me how I know. CS reps get paid to help you solve the problems you are having with the service their company provided you, we're not here for you to vent all of your frustrations with modern technology and how some things can look the same as other things.

SARA OUT

P.S. Also, if you can't tell the difference between 0 and O, and also can't grasp the concept of copying and pasting the password as it appears in the email into the password field, maybe it's time to give up on the whole internet thing

Rosti Pollo

2009-02-28T13:28:00.003-05:00

The images in this post were brought to you by the writer's awesome boyfriend, who gave her a sweet new camera for Valentine's day! What a sweetheart of a guy, eh?

Last weekend, I got the urge, as I so often do on the weekends, to cook myself a nice meal on Sunday. I decided on the menu on Saturday, and then made the surprisingly proactive decision to do the necessary shopping that very evening. Grocery shopping on Saturday night at FoodTown actually turned out to be a pretty pleasant experience. There were far fewer people in the little market than usual, and there was actually still food on the shelves, not always a certainty on Sundays. (Especially on Superbowl Sundays, when you've forgotten that it is Superbowl Sunday and are looking for cilantro for a non-Superbowl related dish.) After picking up my ingredients, and chatting with the affable young checker, I was feeling pretty good about Sunday dinner: Paprika Roast Chicken and Sweet Potato Fries

I had made these sweet potato fries once before, so I knew they were tasty and relatively easy. I needed to know that I had one ace in the hole, because this was my first time roasting a chicken, and I wasn't sure what pitfalls awaited me. I had always heard that roasting a chicken was easy. Like really easy. Like falling off a log easy. But you've got to understand--I've been (mostly) cooking vegetarian for the past two years. Vegetarian cooking is just as complex and interesting as its omnivorous counterpart, but in a different way. For example, you don't have to worry about getting salmonella from a block of raw tofu, nor do you have to carve roasted eggplant once it comes out of the oven. Roasting a chicken was a whole other ball game, and I wanted to be prepared for an epic failure. Just to make this crystal clear--I have no problem eating a bowl full of sweet potato fries for dinner.

Per the About.com entry on roasting a chicken, I made sure to wear an article of poultry-related clothing, and spent a few minutes meditating in the Lonely Chicken yoga pose beforehand. If you're going to do something, do it right, you know? Once my mind was cleared of all non-roasty thoughts, I removed my little free-range organic chicken from its plastic to rinse it in the sink. Holding it in my hands, I began to feel quite tenderly towards it. Here was an animal that had lived and died, and was now going to be sustenance for me. "Don't worry little chicken," I thought at it, "You've given me your life, now I'll do the rest." I gently patted it dry and placed it in the roasting pan.

I made sure to get the spice rub together beforehand, which consisted primarily of paprika, with some of the extra-hot chili powder I had procured from the Indian grocery, and some garlic powder and salt. This roast chicken prompted me to buy paprika for the first time ever, and I was really impressed with the brand of the spice carried by FoodTown.

Not only is it the Pride of Szegeo, an exquisite 100% sweet delicacy, but the tin is reversable! Don't care for paprika in a white tin? Turn it around and you have a cheery red one! Glorious.

The paprika, and by extension the spice rub was just as cheerily red, helped by the addition of the wonderfully spicy chili powder. I don't know about you, but chili powder from McCormack or whatever is never, ever hot enough. It mostly just tastes sort of burnt to me, and after picking up a honkin' bag of the Indian version from Patel's Grocery in Sunset Park, I will never buy the grocery store stuff again. Not only is this chili powder flavorful and HOT, it's waaaay cheaper and comes in greater quantity. As someone who likes everything spicy-hot (I put a little pinch of the stuff in my mocha this morning), I am totally sold on this stuff forever and ever. Rubbing the spice mixture on my little chicken, being sure to get it underneath the skin whenever possible, my hands started to burn--this made me smile...and then immediately run to the sink to rinse the spices from my skin. The chicken was ready for the next phase of its journey to my mouth: The oven.

I began preparing the potatoes as my apartment filled up with the delicious aroma of roasting fowl. I peeped in at the chicken once or twice, but mostly I just let it do its thing. As roasting time approached one hour, I took its temperature--not quite there yet, so another ten minutes and BAM! Right on the money. Removing the bird from the oven, redolent with the glorious smells of paprika, chicken, and triumph, was a wonderful moment.

I'm happy to report that I did not do a terrible job of carving. Sure, there was probably a little more meat left on the carcass than was ideal, but for a first timer, I was pretty happy with the whole business, overall. I had a dish full of chicken meat to eat for the rest of the week, and a roasting pan full of chickeneverythingelse to throw in a pot with some onions and rosemary to make stock! This was the first time I'd ever made stock of any kind, and again, I was really pleased with the result. It came out so flavorful and spicy--I'm really looking forward to using it in soups-to-come.

So, was the roast chicken a success? YES--the meat was tender, juicy, and flavorful from the spice rub. Cooking a whole chicken yields breast meat that is much less dry and boring than the individual breasts you can buy in the supermarket. Was cooking the roast chicken easy? YES--OMG, so easy, and relatively quick. Cooking time was about one hour, and preparing the chicken probably took 10-15 minutes, the same with carving. Was cooking a roast chicken economical? YES--even though I used a fancypants organic free-ranger, the chicken itself was around $10, providing me with chicken for an entire week, plus about six cups of stock. All of the other ingredients I mostly had in the pantry or will be able to use again (the paprika, for example.) What have we learned? That roasting a chicken is easy, cheap, and delicious; there is no reason to be intimidated by roasting a chicken, so go out and roast one of your very own today!

Fashion Drawing 1: Works of the home

2009-02-23T21:51:00.003-05:00

I'm swamped with actual work for class, so no time for a big long update. I did just upload a bunch of pictures of homework sketches and some pages from my journal, so click the lady to go check them out in my flickr stream. I'll try for a proper update later this week :\

Fashion Drawing I: It continues

2009-02-08T16:53:00.002-05:00

What with all the snow we got on Tuesday, I was convinced that my trek to class the next day would feature less than pleasant conditions (again.) Imagine my surprise and delight when Wednesday dawned bright and sunny. Yes, it was bitterly, bitterly cold, but at least my inconveniently large newsprint pad wouldn't morph into a gigantic spitball between Bay Ridge and Union Square. So far the commute hasn't been bad at all. I leave work a half hour early (at 1:30, instead of my normal 2:00), and I've been getting to Union Square at around 2:30-ish, a half hour before class starts, leaving me plenty of time to walk to Parsons and wait around for one of the teeny-tiny elevators. (I wouldn't mind taking the stairs, except the room is on the eleventh floor, and even I'm not that keen.)

Once Prof. W arrived, we got going immediately with twenty 1-minute gesture drawings. We had a live model again, which was very nice. There's just something about having a real person to draw--you get so much more energy and authenticity in your work. One minute is really not a whole lot of time to sketch an entire person, so you've got to try and capture the movement and general pose of the figure in as few strokes as possible. At this point, I feel like what I lack most is consistency--some of my drawings are coming out pretty well, and others not so much. A lot of repetition and practice should take care of that, though.

After the warm-up, W lectured on a few points that had been covered in the homework. The fashion figure is a nearly imaginary one, an entire 1-2 heads longer than an actual person. What this means is that everything gets stretched out--the torso and the legs, in proportion to each other. The proportion is important because when eventually we move on to drawing clothed figures, there will be no way of knowing where the hem on a skirt falls unless the knees are placed at the correct distance from the crotch. Ditto with sleeves and elbows, and the myriad other measurements that must be taken into account when the fashion drawing is adapted into a physical piece of clothing. The point of the fashion figure is to be a sort of living clothes hanger, and to show off the design, not the figure underneath. Drawings without a figure underneath are referred to as "flats," since they are depictions of the garment flat (i.e. not being worn.)

We moved on to 3-minute sketches, which is still not a whole heck of a lotta time. Still, you can get a more complete figure on the page. It's really easy to get overwhelmed and a little freaked out during these exercises. The models use this horrible timer that beeps when time's up, and if you've already filled up your page you have to turn your pad over, trying not to hit your neighbors or knock any of the accumulated table detritus (pencil shavings, eraser crumbs, paper peeled from your charcoal pencil) all over the place. Occasionally I have to remind myself to breath, to relax, and to remember that I like drawing, that drawing is fun!

We stopped again after the 3-minute sketches and W gave us all some notes. Something I struggled with was making my figures long enough, and after he pointed out that I wasn't using up the entire page, I immediately saw my figures start to improve. We moved on to doing 5-minute sketches, which felt like a luxuriously long time compared to the one minute we started class with. The increased amount of time was not the only improving factor in these drawings though; at this point we had all "gotten our eye in" with all of the sketching sessions up to this point.

The last session was also composed of 5-minute intervals, but this time we had to use a piece of colored chalk to draw in the main line of movement and weight in the figure, before sketching in the actual features. I think the figures on the far right and far left in the below photo were my best attempts.

In addition to the twenty pages from the textbook W assigned for homework, we also have to "correct" three of the figures we did in class, which means making sure they conform to the correct proportions and look balanced and just better in general. I'm sort of glad this is the only class I'm taking this semester--I don't know how I'd get through all this work otherwise! I've literally been putting in a couple of hours every day and I've only gotten through ten of the textbook pages. Hopefully I can get through another five tonight, five tomorrow, and then do the corrected figures on Tuesday. Phew!

I freely admit I'm one of those people who loves to shop at TJ's...

2009-02-04T13:15:00.002-05:00

...but I am not alone, apparently.

Snow job!

2009-02-03T18:20:00.002-05:00

Holy moly, and it was in the low fifties, yesterday! Currently it is 29 degrees here, and It's been snowing since this morning, with no signs of letting up. Luckily, yesterday I finally did something I've been meaning to do since moving here...

...buy some rain boots! Brooklyn is a harsher mistress than NoVA, where everything is pretty clean, people actually DO clean up after their dogs, and to get to most places you need a car. Since getting everywhere I go now involves a healthy amount of walking, some waterproof shoes were well in order. I have my hardcore snow boots (which, for my outing today I really should have worn, since they're so much warmer than the wellies,) but those are a bit overkill for just a little bit of rain and muck. It was raining last Wednesday, and in the course of getting to and from class my poor feet got totally soaked a half-dozen times. I say no more! It is the dawning of a new era, an era of dry feet. An era where the bottoms of my pants are safely tucked in, and protected. An era of butterfly rain boots. Glory, glory, glory, amen!

Fashion Drawing I: It begins

2009-01-31T21:13:00.002-05:00

From left to right: sketch from live model drawing session in class, F.D. I textbook, figures in fashion proportions for homework

So, I had my very first class on Wednesday. Going into it, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, and I strained to recall what first classes were like back at William & Mary. Would the teacher expect us to bring anything? Art supplies? Would there be nude models? I just didn't know. Despite never having been a boy scout I do feel a policy of preparedness is a virtuous one, so I brought a small sketch pad and some drawing pencils, just in case.

The room is pretty bare. Stainless steel tables with metal stools form a U-shape around the perimeter with a carpeted platform in the center. At the front is a whiteboard, and off to the side, inexplicably, one of those metal newspaper dispensers you see on the street for the New York Times. When I arrived there were just a few other people sitting around the room. No one was sitting directly next to each other or chatting, they were all just quietly texting or casting furtive glances around the room. I sat down one seat apart from a brown-haired girl who was looking nervously at her schedule. I had my coat in my lap, and I noticed everyone else did too. Looking around (furtively), I saw that there were coat hooks behind the door, so I got up and hung up my umbrella and coat. Slowly, one by one, the other students also stood up to walk swiftly to the row of hooks and hang up their coats. A natural born leader, that's me!

My furtive glancing accidentally collided with a furtive glance from the brown-haired girl to my right. She smiled tentatively, and I tentatively smiled back. "Hi," I said.

"Hi," she said back, "Is this your first semester?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"Mine too," she said.

"It's my very first class, actually. Are you doing the AAS program?"

"Yes," she said, and then in a confidential tone, "I'm so nervous about this class, I'm really terrible at drawing. I went to this intensive camp for it once, and the instructor was so mean to me about my work that I haven't done it since."

Hoping that she hadn't detected any visible signs of the relief these words had invoked, I made with the pep talk. It's not that I'm happy she's so nervous, but it's nice to know that there's at least one other person in the class who is just starting out in the program. Time passed and more people filtered in. It wasn't until about eight minutes past the hour that the teacher arrived and class finally began.

The teacher (professor?), W, has a young face and long black braids. He introduced himself with a quick overview of his career as an illustrator in the fashion industry, which has been long and pretty impressive. He has been teaching at Parsons for the past 15 years, and still does illustration work as well as fine art. The way he speaks, you can tell that he genuinely likes teaching, something he also told us straight up. I have high hopes for him as an instructor, because in addition to projecting as a very friendly guy, he also has a no-nonsense air about him that I respect. I think his criticism will be informative and useful, and I don't think he'll hesitate to give it when it is due, which is pretty much exactly what you want in an art teacher. He did seem slightly disappointed that more people hadn't brought any drawing supplies with them, at which time I was thanking my worry-bone that it had made me bring that sketchpad and pencils, let me tell you!

After going over most of the syllabus, covering the typical syllabus stuff (rules about missing class, food in class, homework and grades) and the typical art class stuff (what supplies to get and where to get them), we took a short break, and then it was time for some live model drawing! I supplied the girl to my right with some sketch paper and a pencil, and we were off. This was actually something that I've done before: 5 minute sketches, where the model changes poses after five minutes. I'm not really sure what Prof. W thought of my work--he never said anything to me, although he did give suggestions to a few people as he was walking around the room.

The sketches certainly were not my best work, but I didn't feel terrible about them. Drawing is like a muscle--it gets stronger the more you do it, and atrophies if you stop. In high school and college, I drew all the time. The margins of worksheets, the paper textbook covers made from grocery bags, the interior of my planner, they were all covered in little illustrations. I had sketchbooks filled with my ideas for comic book characters, and eventually I started working on a few ideas for graphic novels. Later in college, when Clint and I started working on The Supreme Idols of Subculture (our super cool two-person band,) I drew all the art for our website. Thankfully, I still have most of it, even though the website is long dead.

Looking back on all of this stuff, it looks like it was produced by another person. It looks that way because my drawing muscle has gotten so weak, there's no way it could produce work of that quality right now. I look back on this art from the past and I'm proud because it's good, but I'm also kind of regretful. Somewhere between then and now, I let my drawing-self atrophy, and getting back into the swing of it is going to involve a lot of hard work. But it's work that I'm looking forward to, and even if it's frustrating at times, I know it's worth it. Onward!

Okay, I know that should have been the dramatic ending to all this, but I have to share this last anecdote, because it totally silently cracked me up. At the end of class, Prof. W was going over what we needed to bring for next time and the homework. He had asked us to bring a charcoal pencil, and then remembered that we'd also need a kneaded eraser. He was trying to explain what a kneaded eraser is, and then this kid E, one of two dudes in the class, holds one up, which Prof. W takes and uses as a visual aid to his explanation. At this point, this E character gives the rest of us the most smug, self-satisfied look I had ever seen, and even rolled his eyes a little bit, as if to say, "Heaven forbid I should share a universe with such plebians. Imagine knowing not of kneaded erasers!" It was pretty much the most hilarious moment of my week.

Nothing like good old fashioned bureaucracy to make you feel at home

2009-01-25T23:15:00.003-05:00

The good news: I'm totally in at Parsons

The bad news: They decided to let me know four days before classes start. Which means that I spent Friday afternoon going from the admissions office to a meeting with my advisor and then back to the admissions office to try and get things moving as speedily as possible. I still haven't been able to register for any classes because in order to register, I need a login for the New School online registration application. In order to get this login, my tuition deposit, which I turned in by hand on Friday, needs to be processed. Even after the tuition deposit is processed and I am provided with this $400 login, a hold will remain on my record, rendering me unable to register, until after confirmation that I have been immunized for measles, mumps, and rubella has been received by the student health center. Fortunately, I am in the happy position of having a dad who can sign such things, so after dealing with admissions on Friday, I booked over to the Staples at Union Square and faxed my dad the form, who then faxed it to the student health center. Tomorrow I'll call to confirm that they got it, and then call admissions to see what the deal is with the login. All this paper shuffling and running back and forth between offices really lets you know that you're back in a place of higher education. Oh hallowed halls of learning and red tape, it's good to be back!

Luckily, I was unable to stress out all weekend about Parsons' mixed messages de matriculation, since one of my fanciest gal pals came to visit! The weekend was full of the most refined and girlish activities. Saturday we trekked into Manhattan and then out of it again in search of that mysterious creature known as the Williamsburg Hipster. We stumbled upon an artsy little flea market/craft fair (as you do) and made several wise and just purchases. One of the venders there was selling used books, and I snagged a weird little hardback called Dumas On Food, which consists of translated selections from Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine by Alexandre Dumas. It's full of odd little dictionary entries about different kinds of food which are accompanied by gorgeous engraved illustrations. Here is the entry Dumas gives for hazelnuts, in its entirety.

A kind of large purplish nut. They say that the best kind comes from the lands of Foix and Roussillon, but I am inclined to think that the best are those from Avellines, which has given them their name. Hazelnuts grow wild in the ravines and ruins which surround Avellines. Victor Hugo all but killed himself when he fell into one of these ravines while he was picking hazelnuts as a child.

I'm pretty delighted by this book, I must say. After a nice little walk and a quick duck-in to a cafe for a warming beverage, S and I crammed back on the L to Union Square. We walked over to take a look at the Parsons building, and then had a good browse through The Strand and the soon-to-close Virgin Megastore. By this time it was evening, and we were both getting rather tired and hungry, so it was back on the R train down south to Brooklyn!

My intrepid companion and I had decided on trying out the recently opened Buttermilk Channel for dinner. I must admit, I was a bit nervous about getting seated, since the place had just opened and gotten glowing reviews all over the place. My fears turned out to be somewhat justified; the hostess told us that there was about an hour wait for a table. But, she said, I have reservations for a couple in an hour and a half, so if you think you'll be done before then, I can seat you now. (I had to ask her to explain this again, since my brain was partially frozen from the bone-aching cold outside. Basically, there was a two-seater open, but since there were people with reservations for that table in an hour and a half, she wanted to make sure we wouldn't hang around too long and infringe on the reservation if she seated us there.) S and I assured her we had no intention of lingering over our food for longer than that, so we ended up getting seated five minutes after we walked in!

One of the cool things about this restaurant is that they have a totally seperate vegetarian menu, which is nice because S is in the veggiesaurus camp. When I asked about the v-menu, our Connor Oberst-looking waiter fetched it for us, and then asked me if I ate fish or not. "Oh, not me," I said, "S is the vegetarian." He then proceeded to tell S that he, too, was a vegetarian, and mostly addressed her for the rest of the meal. I think I further disappointed him by ordering the hamburger, which came to the table exquisitely rare. (Inspired by A Hamburger Today, I cut the burger in half before diving in, just to check that they had cooked it to my bloody specifications.) S' pasta with pumpkin and olives was out of this world--I'll probably order that the next time I'm there, and there will be a next time, because the pecan pie sundae we ordered for dessert was something that I want, nay must experience again. Imagine a tall glass, filled to the brim with layers of vanilla ice cream and pecan pie, topped with a heavenly chapeau of whipped cream and pecans. It was gone so quickly a picture was out of the question, but you can use the snap of the empty glass as a starting point for your imagination.

Kicking around with a good egg like S all weekend was the perfect celebration for getting in to school. Just two elegant, fun-lovin' ladies, stuffing our faces and offending hipsters with loud, derogatory swipes at Chuck Klosterman. I can't wait to start school. I can't wait to meet some new people and add another layer of purpose to my life here. I can't wait.

It's almost time to open a new door...

2009-01-22T22:06:00.002-05:00

...I hope I'm ready.

The price of catsitting is far outweighed by the rewards

2009-01-21T22:52:00.002-05:00

Little Libby went back home tonight with my common-law brother-in-law and his partner, freshly returned from their trip to Paris (France, not Texas). Catsitting has clarified something that I always suspected about myself, but was never able to prove; I am not a cat person. Now, Libby is a paragon of catly virtue--cute, sweet, low maintenance, non-destructive to leather couches...the list goes on. As I remain unmoved by such an ideal specimen, I must conclude that nothing in this life will ever convince me to live permanently with a feline companion. The thing about cats that leaves me utterly cold, that proved to be the dealbreaker of all dealbreakers, is the amount of hair they manage to affix to everything, under everything, and on everything. The tumbleweeds of dead organic matter that blow unbidden across my beautiful hardwood floors send shivers down my spine. The white hairs on my cooking surfaces clinched it--I am not a cat person.

Let me clarify, for I do not mean to offend. Many of my most beloved friends live happily with one or more furry pals, in clean and comfy living spaces. The key difference between myself and my cat-owning friends is probably that they don't actively resent the cat, and then start to obsess over that resentment. After a few days passed, I found myself getting angry at Libby. "Why can't you clean up after yourself?" I found myself wondering. "Why must you rub your face up against the legs of my desk, when it only serves to cover the legs of my desk with white hairs? Also, you just pooped in a box full of sand and now you're walking all over my apartment. With your feet. Your feet that were in the poop sandbox." A few days with the nicest, sweetest little kitty imaginable turned me into a crazy anti-cat lady, a figure far less mocked in the media than her well known counterpoint.* It turns out that I am too neurotic to share my home with a cat, because even though I know they are very clean animals who devote a great deal of time to personal hygiene, a single white hair on my kitchen island is enough to send me into a minor freak-out. Cats, please understand it's not you, it's me. As a self-proclaimed animal lover, this is hard for me too. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I love you, but I'm not IN love with you. I hope we can still be friends.

C&J came this evening to pick Libs up, and it was a joyful occasion for everyone involved. There were also treats from Paris, which put me in an even better mood--check out these lovely chocs!

I've sampled two of them already, and may I say, "Sacrebleu!" I think the fact that I ate the chocolates after coming back to my empty apartment and sweeping, vacuuming, and lint-rolling the bejeezus out of everything made them all the sweeter.

*Which just got me thinking right this minute, which do you think sounds worse? "She died all alone, in her empty apartment, and who knows how long it would have taken for people to find out, except for the fact that the apartment had no air conditioning and the smell was ungodly," or "She died surrounded by her beloved swarm of cats, who consumed the body and later went on to inherit the house, as per her last will and testament."

And now...

2009-01-21T14:48:00.001-05:00

You can thank me later for getting this song stuck in your brain for all eternity.

Bay Ridge -- January 19, 2009

2009-01-20T15:16:00.005-05:00

Front end of the monastery by my building, the part not surrounded by the medieval-looking wall

The medieval-looking monastery wall

Ye olde pile of trashbags with radioactive pedestrian crossing sign

Hey there, lonely girl!

2009-01-14T09:32:00.005-05:00

I've been getting a lot of concerned phonecalls from my parents lately. Each call contains an exchange that is some variation of the following:

Parent: So, how are you doing?
Me: Doing well, how are you?
Parent: No, but how are you doing? Without Clint there? Aren't you horribly lonely?
Me: Oh, you know, I'm doing okay with it. I've been keeping busy with a, b, and c.
Parent: Seriously, the lonliness must be destroying you from the inside out like a supporating cancer. It's okay, you can tell me.
Me: It's...no...I'm fine, really! I'm not happy about the situation, obviously, but I'm dealing with it. I'm okay, honestly!
Parent: I think you should think about joining a gym.

Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression here. I love my mom and dad very much, and their concern for me is touching. I know that they just want to make sure I'm not putting on a brave face when in actuality I'm about to throw myself in front of the R train or something. I know that. However, the conversation itself is starting to depress me more than the reality of being alone ever did. Yes, it turns out that to me, trying to convince someone that (truthfully) I'm not desperately unhappy is worse than the admittedly less-than-ideal situation that sparked their concern for me in the first place. Who knew?

Sunday Re-cap and the Odd Incident in the Elevator

2009-01-05T17:19:00.006-05:00

After working a marathon on-call (Wednesday evening up through 10PM on Sunday), in retrospect I feel that overall it was very productive. Cleaned the hedgie cage, re-organized my drawers, had some mediocre Chinese food and watched the entire BBC miniseries of Pride & Prejudice, the entire second season of Big Love...OH AND TOTALLY ROCKED THE FUCK OUT OF MY GIOTTO

The first phase is finished, and I'm already plugging away on the neck and armhole ribbing. After that is the embroidery and then the ceremonial weaving in of ends, and then sweet, sweet completion. I definitely need to get a belt to wear with it, and I have some brown tights that will work perfectly. Not sure about shoes yet, but I'm thinking some suede plum colored flats or boots or something along those lines. I think this will be a definite contender for Rhinebeck this year, at least on one of the days.

Sunday afternoon I decided to cook myself a nice dinner to make up for the mediocre Chinese food (which was delicious, as all mediocre Chinese food is, but I did feel sort of guilty about eating it for 1.5 days). After perusing my new favorite website, I decided on two dishes that sounded delicous, but required a minimum amount of ingredients and prep.

The chicken in tinfoil with olives and tomatoes was actually really fun to make, in addition to being easy and quick. Here is the mysterious tinfoil package, being cooked ever so mysteriously on the range:

You cook the chicken wrapped up in foil in a hot skillet for about 8 minutes, and then, POP! (Not literally, it doesn't pop open, but this picture makes it looks like the foil is saying, "POP!"

The Haricot Panache was a fabulous dish, one that I'll definitely be making again. I had to settle for frozen green beans because the produce section at Foodtown looked like a tornado had blown through it. I subbed Smart Balance for the butter, and had to use dried parsley because of the whole tornado thing again. It came out delicious though, especially with the clove of garlic I sauteed in the SmarBal before adding the cannellinis.

This was such a tasty dinner, especially with a hearty juice glass of Greek table wine (I'll have to get some wine glasses one of these days). Also there were enough leftovers for two more meals--yay for leftovers!

And now for something completely different...the curious incident in the elevator
(Quick note: our elevator is one of those old school dealies with two doors--the elevator door which slides open and shut, and the doors on each floor that connect the elevator to the rest of the building.)

So I got back from my walk to the library this afternoon and there was an older woman waiting for the elevator. I reached her just as she was letting the heavy elevator door slide shut. I caught the door and slid in behind her. Here is the bizarre exchange we had in the elevator.

Lady: Hello

Me: Hi

Lady: I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else, or I would have held the door

Me: Oh

Lady: I thought you were an enemy

Me: Oh...No...

Lady: No (laughs)

The elevator stopped as we reached her floor.

Me: Well, have a good one

Lady: You do the same

Weird, huh?

Hello, 2009!

2009-01-01T15:02:00.006-05:00

First off, thank you everyone that emailed or called re: my last post. You guys are the best :) After writing it, I sort of instantly started to feel better. Writing things down can do that for you sometimes.

Aaaanyway, we had a very nice, quiet new year's eve together. It was sooo cold in New York last night that we were laughing to ourselves about all the suckers in Times Square. There were some people that had been standing there since 11AM, and it never left the twenties all day! Fools, utter fools, I tell you! Why would you choose to stand out in the elements when you can eat too much and drink a fine demi sec in the comfort of your own cozy apartment? The TrueBlood marathon on our newly acquired HBO was really just the buttercream frosting on this indulgent cake of an evening.

Dinner was a very traditional Clint-and-Sara meal of Morningstar Farms "chicken" nuggets (these things are the best ever, let me tell you), and some delectable rosemary garlic sweet potato fries. The recipe for the fries came from the Pinch My Salt blog, a recent discovery via the Serious Eats blog, which I can never thank Fidget Knits enough for cluing me in to.

Here's a nice food-porny picture, although not pictured is the bowl of bleu cheese dressing we were using to dunk the fries in. It sounds weird, but it was so. effing. good.

I accidentally partially froze the bubbly, which I didn't realize was actually possible, but it turned out to be pretty tasty. In addition to being icy cold, it had a sort of "wino's delight" alcoholic slurpee quality that was surprisingly pleasing. You heard it here, first!

So, my new year's eve was great, and now I'm trying to figure out how to spend the rest of my new year's day. Clint has already left for the ever charming Port Authority bus terminal, and the way I see it, I have two options: I can be "productive" and do some cleaning up around the house, fold my laundry, wash dishes, etc. Or, I can knit and watch the all day Monk marathon on USA. I need to make some serious progress on my Giotto, so I may opt for option B for a while, until I get disgusted with myself for being such a lazybones. Also, leftover lentil soup for dinner, or mediocre Chinese? (I'm on-call all weekend, starting last night, so I can't stray too far from the nest). I think I'll have another latte and just mull it all over.

Shaking your fist at the sky does NOTHING!

2008-12-30T12:16:00.003-05:00

Hello there, friends. Yes, I'm still alive and livin' in B-Ridge, but there have been some developments of late that make me wish I weren't such a staunch atheist. If I weren't such a staunch atheist, then I could shake my fist at the sky and go, "Hey god, go fuck yourself!" because seriously, you guys, everytime I think 2008 can't get anymore depressing, it totally DOES.

Basically, a few days before X-mas, Clint got word that he has to go to North Carolina for two months for special army training because...wait for it...there's a unit that's deploying in May, and he may be going with them. Oh, and he has to be in North Carolina by January 12th. Oh, and he's leaving Thursday (that's two days from now, ya'll) for Virginia to finish up some paperwork, then he has to go to several other exotic military locales to do more paperwork stuff before January 12th.

I realize that this is not a unique ocurrence, and I know there are plenty of other families that are having to deal with this same situation right now, and they are probably dealing with it with far more grace and dignity than I. The way I am dealing with it is by alternating fits of spontaneous weeping with bouts of childish sullenness. Both make me feel guilty for different reasons, so then I feel guilty for a while, and then I get angry at...I'm not quite sure. The U.S. military? Clint? Myself? None of it makes a whole lot of sense, and I'm sure it's really off-putting to everyone around me (throngs in the MoMA last Saturday afternoon, I'm looking at you), but it's sort of out of my hands. When you feel so godawful that you burst into tears for no apparent reason, the only remedy is to wait it out. You can't go on feeling like that forever, it takes too much time and energy. I'm not sure whether I'm entering the denial phase or the acceptance phase, but already I'm feeling a little better. For example, instead of sleeping for five hours after work today, I'm actually considering getting dressed and going outside. I'm actually considering that everything is going to be sort of okay. Not ideal, but the sort of okay I can live with until this is all over.

P.S. To show you that I'm not living entirely in Sadsackton, here are a few good things:
- I got my application to Parsons off successfully. Sure it was a tad late, but still in before the January 1 rolling deadline!
- I hit a real homerun at the giftlympics this year, I think
- The skinnifying trend continues: I've lost nearly 20 pounds since I started SB, no longer fit properly into pants that used to be too small, and have started occasionally wearing Clint's jeans, because they fit better.

Pop Xmas Music Part III

2008-12-17T10:14:00.002-05:00

Haha, J reminded me of this little gem in the chatroom today. The part about the sprout is my favorite.

Let's end this radio silence, let's be friends again

2008-12-15T10:05:00.008-05:00

So, this weekend I had my first real Brooklyn-y experience since the move. During the week, I'm working in the mornings (from home, which IS weird, but sort of enjoyable at times), and then I usually take a nap, go to Foodtown, cook dinner, etc. Yeah, it sounds dull, but everyday life IS dull.* Regardless of where you are, you still need to sleep, to eat, to clean the house and wash the dishes. If you're me, you still need to knit and play video games. Routine is what keeps you grounded when everything else in your life is changing; it helps you accomodate change because you still have all of these familiar things going on around you. I experienced the same routinization lust when I first got to Japan, and after beating myself up about "not fully appreciating the new experiences open to me," and blah blah blah, I eventually decided to just embrace it. A PLACE isn't going to change or go away while you get used to the fact that you're in it. Neither can a location make you happy or sad--that shit is internal, so better to make yourself happy first, and then worry about what you're doing on Saturday night.

Anyway, Sunday I traveled out of Bay Ridge (my 'hood) to Fort Greene, to check out the Gifted holiday craft fair one of the Brooklyn blogs has been pimping. Clint warned me that my destination subway stop, Atlantic-Pacific, was very confusing and that I would probably get lost. Luckily, this is a feeling I am used to. I have a TERRIBLE sense of direction, the upshot of which is that being lost no longer holds any fear for me, especially when I'm walking. Amazingly, I barely got lost getting to the Masonic Temple from the subway. The little bit of lost I did get was due to some second-guessing on my part, which I would say is the reason for my getting lost about 60% of the time. After spending an hour or so at the fair, and picking up some nice little presents for most of the people on my list, I started making my way back to the trains, and got superbly lost.

I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I walked in a big circle, passed in and out of one of the adjoining neighborhoods, and ended up right back where I started before I managed to burrow underground and find the R. It was all worth it though, because when the elevator opened up to take me down into the bowels of the subway, these two people came out, having a massive fight. The man was accusing the woman of being a liar and a cheater, and telling her that he couldn't believe anything she said. It took him a while to get out of the elevator because he had to maneuver a huge baby carriage out first. It was so incredibly awkward, but also kind of amazing to hear a couple having a huge fight right out in public, pushing their baby (I assume) along in front of them. To balance out the bad vibes, an adorable family got on the elevator with me. There's something about seeing a father out with his cute little kids that just warms the cockles of my heart.

When I finally got home after my Sunday excursion, I was ready to put it in relax-mode. One Coke Zero and some Chinese leftovers later, I settled in for a couple of hours of video games before bed. It's all about balance, I tell ya!

*Unless you're a cowboy or pirate captain or something. Even then, I bet there's plenty of boredom mixed in with the excitement.

Looking out our kitchen window...

2008-12-09T11:04:00.001-05:00

Pop X-mas Music, Part II

2008-12-05T09:08:00.004-05:00

Why not, I say? I'm hearing traditional Christmas music EVERYWHERE I go--I'm fighting back! I have loved this song for years and years. "My vodka and snow is melting, the alcohol isn't helping" is one of the greatest lines in a Christmas song since B.C.

Atia (again)

2008-12-04T21:37:00.005-05:00

So, like, eons ago, when I was a frequent poster on Craftster, and Ravelry hadn't even been born yet, I designed this sweater for a knitting challenge devised around a garter stitch lace pattern. At the time, I was smitten with HBO's fantastic series "Rome," and most particularly with the brutal and clever Atia, mother of Augustus Caesar. Honestly, the sweater did not come out exactly as I had envisioned. Because it was my first time designing, I miscalculated the length of the armscyes, and made sleeves that were waaay too narrow in diameter. Lazily, I decided to bill the sweater as an off-the-shoulder number, and call it a day.

It didn't look bad, exactly, but it wasn't something I ever, ever wore. After wearing it to take the photo to post on Craftster, Atia sat lonely on a shelf in my closet. (I didn't win the challenge, but I came damn close!)

After starting on Giotto, I began to feel the familiar itch of wanting to start something else, something quick that I could finish fast. I needed the completion high. However, I was reluctant to start a whole new project, so I turned my eye to correcting a past wrong.

Atia came off the shelf, and I spent an afternoon laboriously picking out the seams and unraveling the sleeves and body, down to the beginning of the armscyes. I decided to make it sleeveless this time, since I had a limited quantity of yarn to work with. Below is the result--

--which I like a great deal more. It's probably not something I would design again today, but it's infinitely more wearable now, and I still like the way that the rib in the center front splits to frame the garter stitch lace panel. On a vainer note, I was shocked and pleased to see how much skinnier I am now than when the old Atia picture was taken. I'm wearing the same jeans in both photos, funnily enough, and today they are loose as a goose. Go me!

It's after Thanksgiving, so this post is completely acceptable.

2008-12-03T09:53:00.002-05:00

A well known fact about me is that, despite being of the atheist/anti-religious/Jewish persuasion, I still kind of love Christmas music. My love of the old classics has certainly wained since I was a wee one, which is why I'm always thrilled to hear new original X-mas music. This one is especially adorable, although I wish there was a cute video to go with it.

What am I waiting for?

2008-11-24T09:30:00.002-05:00

Something has just occured to me: I spent a couple of hours on Sunday working on a letter of recommendation for a friend. I sat down, and made myself write steadily until it was finished, then spent a few minutes this morning making the requisite copies and signatures, and sealing it all up in an envelope. I did this because there was a deadline to meet, and I care about my friend and want him to successfully apply on time. Why can't I do the same thing for myself?

Boo, no yah

2008-11-19T23:13:00.002-05:00

Urggggh, just heard back from the woman who came to see the condo on Tuesday. She is going to "persue a different direction." Am ocillating between feeling persecuted and suspecting universe of exacting karmic justice on me because I'm such a terrible person. Will attempt to self-sooth with sulking and wanton slaughter of monsters. Am hoping things will look better in the morning...

WIP Smart

2008-11-19T12:48:00.006-05:00

"So, what has she been working on?" I'm sure you're all wondering.

After finding myself free from the chains of any unfinished projects, I decided to immediately jump back into the fray (LOLOMG) with something big and involved and gorgeous. Rowan 44 came to mind at once; I bought the magazine a month or so ago, mainly because I like looking at the pictures, though I hadn't any intention of embarking on one of the patterns right away. The Nostalgia patterns are very pretty, but I like the Renaissance story best. The pieces in Renaissance show so much artistry and narrative, and I love the idea of designing around a historical period that fashionwise, at first glance, seems utterly nonapplicable to modern life. It's odd and wonderful that silouettes and color stories from such a long time ago can seem so daring and chic today. I might have been channeling this spirit a little bit while working on my Parson's collage, which is DONE, by the way. Here's one little part of it that I had to assemble before adding it to the whole. I took this picture so I'd know how to glue the individual pieces together.

I finally decided on Giotto, which you can kind of see here if you squint. This is the first time that I'm using the exact yarn in the exact colors the pattern calls for...somewhat. The body of the sweater is knit in Rowan Kid Classic, and that's where I stayed totally true to the pattern. After you finish knitting the garment, you go back and embellish it with embroidery, in different colors of Rowan Wool Cotton. I mixed this up a bit, only getting four different colors to embellish with, instead of the approximately two thousand called for in the pattern. I'm still working on the front piece, but since the entire thing is just a front and back (no sleeves), I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far. This is the first big stranded colorwork project I've ever done, and I am enjoying it. It's definitely a technique that requires a certain amount of concentration, but the Kid Classic is such a dream to work with I almost don't mind having to rip back the same row half a dozen times because I keep screwing up the pattern.

What I talk about when I talk about working...

2008-11-12T13:33:00.003-05:00

My friend J and I work literally back-to-back--our workstations are so close together that if I kicked off hard enough on the bottom of my desk, I could probably smash his back pretty good with my office chair. Despite the proximity, we mostly chat over AIM during the day instead of vocalizing. The below snippet is probably why...

Me (12:03:36 PM): those new pizzone ads are soooo gross
J (12:03:45 PM): IT'S A POUND OF FOOD
J (12:03:47 PM): STUFF IT IN YOUR HOLE
Me (12:03:50 PM): I hate how one of the selling points is that it weighs a pound
Me (12:03:51 PM): haha
J (12:04:08 PM): i wish there was a shot of them putting it on a scale and the scale explodes
Me (12:04:17 PM): yeah, I was thinking the same thing
J (12:04:21 PM): NOW YOU TRY IT....IN YOUR GUT
J (12:04:37 PM): most commercials could stand to benefit from more explosions
Me (12:04:38 PM): like the dial on the scale just shoots over so hard, the whole thing goes up in flames
Me (12:05:08 PM): Then the pizzone flys up to heaven, and god is all like, "Mmmmm, PIZZONE!!!"
J (12:05:20 PM): and god explodes
Me (12:05:38 PM): no, wait, the devil snatches it out of god's hands, just as he's about to take a bite
J (12:05:39 PM): Pizza Hut taking a stand on the god issue
Me (12:05:50 PM): and then this epic battle between heaven and hell ensues
J (12:06:03 PM): and Slash pops up on the screen wailin on his guitar
Me (12:06:32 PM): he wails so hard, everything blows up
Me (12:06:34 PM): EVERYTHING
J (12:06:54 PM): oh man if they could make your TV blow up that would be the shit
J (12:07:21 PM): if i was watching a pizzone commercial and my TV blew up i would be like "shit i gotta get me one of those"
Me (12:07:38 PM): "and a new tv"
J (12:07:57 PM): i will cry into my pizzone and drink my tears
J (12:08:01 PM): a pound of delicious tears
Me (12:08:36 PM): a cornucopia of tears and melted cheese

End of an era

2008-11-12T11:56:00.005-05:00

So the other day, for a brief period of time, I had no projects on the needles. Everything was finished--TOTALLY finished. Ends were woven in, fabric was blocked, finished items were folded and tucked away. It was weird.

Among these finished items was my Gossamer Stars scarf, something I'd been working on for-ev-er. One of the things I like best aboutRavelry is that the Notebook feature allows you to log exactly when you started and finished a project. In this particular instance, I began the scarf on May 18, 2008, and finally wrapped things up on October 31, 2008. I attribute my laggardly pace to two things:

1) While working on this scarf, I quickly became very dubious that it was something I'd wear, once it was finished. The light blue and yellow started to see way too Easter eggy for my taste. This uncertainty dulled my desire to finish it in a timely fashion.

2) Scarves are just kind of boring to work on. Even lace scarves made out of gorgeous, buttery Handmaiden Sea Silk.

At the end of the day, this thing finally got finished because it was a super-portable project that I ended up taking on several trips. When given the choice between boring knitting and no knitting, I'll take boring knitting. It's turned out to be a really great scarf that I've worn several times already. The post-blocked Sea Silk is wonderfully drapy, and the fabric is thin enough that I can loop it a gazillion times around my neck and still feel comfy. Plus, the colors look great with my black corduroy blazer--not Easter eggy at all!

Just so you know...

2008-11-01T18:17:00.002-04:00

...boxes are the hardest part of the cupcake business. I heard it from a cupcake seller, so you can be sure it's true. And yes, she did refer to it as "the cupcake business." If she had called it, "the cupcake game," I might have wet my pants with joy.

It's things like this that make me question my artistic vision...

2008-10-31T09:08:00.002-04:00

So I wore my AMAZING Noro funnel-neck sweater to work today. Because it's Friday, J and I headed down to Starbucks for our traditional, celebratory Friday morning beverages. When I stepped up to the counter, the woman behind the cash register got this concerned look in her eye, and, gesturing to the huge stand-up collar on my sweater, asked, "What is this for?!" It took me a minute to realize that she thought the collar was some kind of medical apparatus, possibly a neck brace. Where this woman thought I obtained a wool/silk neckbrace embellished with cables is beyond me, but when I explained it was part of my sweater, she did say it was very nice.

In which I document the democratic process with a mobile phone-camera photo

2008-10-29T22:19:00.004-04:00

Note to self...

2008-10-29T14:06:00.001-04:00

Trader Joe's Garden Patch juice tastes NOTHING like V-8. Never buy this, ever.

Damn, it is so windy outside!

2008-10-28T17:54:00.003-04:00

The Virginia flag outside my building is going crazy, that's how windy it is. It's kind of odd that my building has two flag poles out in front, with the American and Virginia flags, like it's pretending to be a government building or something. In any case, it's nice to see the VA flag flying so proudly--such a good flag, what with the naked lady standing on the corpse of that dead dude. Once or twice I have entertained the idea of getting 'Sic Semper Tyrannus' tattooed on my ladylike bicep because it's such a kickass motto. It would make shaking my fist at tyrants all the more effective. 'Manly deeds, womanly words,' can go suck it! (Extra points if you know which lame state has that motto.

Things on the renter front remain quiet and uneventful, but I'm trying not to get discouraged. I think things will pick up a lot, post-November 4th, so I'm just going to sit tight and wait it out.

Currently, I'm working away at my Parson's application, and I should be able to make the November 1 deadline. For those of you cringing at the closeness of my cutting, know that I am not a "turn it in early" kind of kid. Deadlines are there for a reason--to let you know the last possible minute you can turn something in and still be in the clear. The home test, that is, the collage representing the lifestyle of the person I hope to design for, is taking a mite longer than I thought it would, but I'm pretty pleased with the way it's coming out, and I think it will be super cool when it's done.

Anyway, I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging, but that's enough for today--My blogging muscle has atrophied, so we're going to take it slowly at first.

Hat Trick

2008-09-05T18:47:00.030-04:00

Gameplan : Aspen Hat, by Pam Allen, from Classic Elite Yarns, Autumn Book 1

The Players:
Yarn - Wool In The Woods Willow Hill Big Wool (wool/alpaca blend), in Smoke.
Needles - Size US#15s, 16" circular

Playbook: I knit this holding four strands of this single spun yarn together, to get the super-bulky weight called for in the pattern. Other than that, this was a straight, by the book knit. I leeerve it!

Preparing for the Fall

2008-07-28T07:38:00.004-04:00

It's almost August, you guys. Can you believe it? Despite the fact that we'll probably have some scorchers in September and possibly October, August always seems to me the last month that can be considered "summer." Pools close, traffic worsens, and every now and then it's slightly less hot than it was in August. Also, and this may be the most important thing of ALL about August, it's only two months before October; Rhinebeck month!

Last year I brought along my awesome Notre Dame de Grace pullover, still my favorite sweater to wear, and I was even able to walk around the fairgrounds for a bit wearing it before I got too hot and had to take it off. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for cooler weather this year, since I'll have a sweater actually made of last year's Rhinebeck yarn to show off.

Okay, so it's not totally done yet, but it will be. This is the Pen sweater (short for Penelope), part of my fake STEAM collection. All I have left to knit are the sleeves and collar, neither of which will take much time at all. I'll probably work both sleeves at the same time, as is my custom. Then there will be some blocking, seaming, and weaving in of ends to finish. The last thing I will do is find three buttons to go on the bottom band (seen below, being held together with pins).

The buttons are semi-cosmetic, but they are also there to help get the band placed correctly on my hip bones without stretching it out too much.

This sweater has come together in a very pleasant, organic way. I knit the bottom band first, flat, and then picked up and knit the body of the sweater in the round, up to the armholes. The raglan decreases are pretty standard (I think. This is the first time I've done raglan sleeves), and the neckline is shaped via short rows. The sleeves, like the body, have a cabled band at the cuff that the rest of the sleeve gets picked up from. I still haven't made a firm decision about the collar, but I think inspiration will strike when the time is right.

Argh, the February Lady Sweater! This thing is everywhere and cannot be avoided. I too have fallen ill with FLSS (February Lady Sweater Syndrome) and cast-on with Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk Aran, which has super crappy yardage. It also sheds all over the fucking place.

I dunno, bros, I sort of have mixed feelings about this sweater. I think I made the armholes too big, but I'm going to try and make it work (ROFLOLMAO). I started this project with 10 balls of yarn, and I'm saving 2 balls to do the sleeves, which are going to be considerably shorter than in the pattern. Eh, we'll see how it comes out. I can always rip it if it doesn't work. This is a super quick knit, and I feel kind of guilty anyway because I interrupted work on the Pen sweater to make it. Meh.

This is the Ribbed Baby Jacket I made for one of my co-workers, as his wife is about to have a behbeh. I'm seriously considering making it again, because I suspect it might be too big. I mean, it's stretched out on my dressform, but even still.

Also, the lettering on the back is kind of off-center. I think my indifference to children is really being showcased in this sweater. I guess I could add an exclamation point to try and center it up a bit... Enghhhhhhhh.

My Gossamer Stars scarf is half-finished. This is a nice project to pop in my bag when I need some low-intensity knitting, so I'm not in any real rush to finish it. The Handmaiden Sea Silk yarn is absolutely luscious, and the drape of this scarf is going to be gorgeous. I think it will look really cool all scrumpled up around my neck, maybe with some kind of cool metal pin. Overall, should be a cool finished object.

So, there you have it. I'm working on a bunch of things, and there's actually another work-in-progress not shown here because I haven't taken a picture of it yet. The Fall is coming, and I have to be ready. Peace!

Mr. Bento Part II - ETA

2008-06-27T09:51:00.003-04:00

For those interested, I bought Mr. Bento on Amazon. He comes with a stylish yet understated black cloth case with outside pocket and shoulder strap, and a metal spork with its own little plastic cover.

ETA--Mr. Bento seems most popular with the ladies. Check out his group on flickr for some extreme lunch-porn action.

Mr. Bento

2008-06-26T22:47:00.004-04:00

The veggie-chicken nuggets aren't the most creative lunch I've ever put in that container, but hey, tomorrow is Friday, and I loves me some Morningstar Farms Chik-nuggets. The yogurt with blueberries is breakfast, the pickles, cheese, crackers thing is my snack, and the salad and nuggets are lunch. Keep in mind I start work at 6AM, and when you eat breakfast at 6:30, you definitely want a snack by 10. And by you, I mean me.

I never do these...

2008-06-26T17:03:00.002-04:00

...and yet, Elspeth tagged me, so I must.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago? 
Hmm, the summer of 1998? That would have been right after my freshman year of highschool, so I probably spent every day over at my friend Megan Mitchell’s house, with Becky Benham and Joanna Sherry. Megan had a pool, and she helped me dye my hair bright pink right before the school year ended. If memory serves, the reason I dyed my hair was because Megan had just dyed her hair this rad, deep purple color, and I was soooo envious, but since my hair is so dark I was convinced I’d never be able to do anything with it. Luckily, Megan was worldly enough to clue me into bleaching kits, and I have a vivid memory of sitting in her awesome basement, (it had a basket chair that hung from the ceiling!!), wrapped in a sheet with my poor head on fire, eating popsicles while my hair went from brown to orange to white. Then we dyed it pink, and then I called my mom to tell her I had dyed my hair. Good times!

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
1. Work part I of my split shift (Done!)

2. Go see Get Smart because I won’t be able to see it with all my friends tonight (Done!)

3. Get some groceries so I can have dinner tonight (Done!)

4. Make dinner, which will hopefully be ravioli with homemade tomato sauce, salad with loads of kalamata olives, and an ice-cream sandwich for dessert (Looking forward to this)

5. Work part II of my split shift (Bleagh.)
 
3) Snacks I enjoy: 
Oh man, I could write a whole composition on this, because do I ever love to eat. Right now, my usual snack at work consists of five or so cornichons (really sour little pickles), three slices of salami, a wedge of cheese and some rice crackers. I’m much more of a salty-snack person than a sweet-snack person, although I do love a good pie or some ice cream. I recently bought this amazing lunch system called Mr. Bento (a fine Zojirushi product), which looks kind of like a soviet missile on the outside, but contains four little stackable containers within. I have found that packing a really elaborate entourage of food for yourself is strangely rewarding—I even bought these silicone cupcake and mini-cupcake cups, to use as dividers inside the containers. Dang, I’ll have to take some pictures, it is super-sweet. To sum up, I enjoy eating many things.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire: 
Quit my suck-ass job, move to New York and buy a sweet apartment in the city, do a full degree at Parsons, and get a new and awesome job. Since I’ll get to travel to all sorts of cool and fashionable places with this sweet job, I’ll probably buy houses in Tokyo, Milan and Paris, where I will totally force my friends to come and stay with me at various times throughout the year. I would also hire a butler.

5) Places I have lived: 
1. Northern Virginia (I’m not going to name all the individual cities, NoVA is all the same, anyway.)

2. Williamsburg, Virginia (Southern Virginia is very different than northern Virginia, and not in a good way. More in a hot, humid, boring way.)

3. Tatsuno-machi, Nagano-ken, Japan

6) Jobs I have had: 
1. Starbucks Barista: The source of all of my best, job-related stories. I started working there in high school, and then went back the summer after my sophomore year of college, for reasons that are still unclear. That definitely knocked the urge to work in retail out of me for good, and I haven’t looked back since. Show me a Starbucks manager and I’ll show you a mysogynistic, racist, anger-management problem-having mental deficient.

2. Receptionist for a construction company: It was Flippo Constriction, to be exact. This was a summer job of some sort. The things I remember best about the job: It coincided with the summer that Vanilla Coke came out, and Clint, Jeremy and I were totally addicted to it. I got hit on, by my immediate boss, on the first day I worked there, and I totally shot him down. Also, one day they had me drive out to the home office to get this spreadsheet printed up on the big printer. When I asked how big they wanted it, all my boss would tell me was, “as big as possible.”…it ended up being too big, which I maintain was not my fault.

3. File clerk for a surgery center: One of the most boring jobs I have ever had. Did you know that handling paper all day long severely dries out your hands? I worked in the same room as the X-ray tech, and she used to listen to Bill O’Reilly on the radio, every day. She also loved scrapbooking. This job had one saving grace, and that was that there was a free, catered, on-site lunch every day. Doc P did (still does) surgeries there twice a week, so we got to have lunch together sometimes. Other than that, though, not a great job.

4. CS rep for a news aggregate: This is my current job. See Question 4.

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:
No one—if I want to get to know you better, I’ll just bone you.

Astounding!

2008-04-27T21:45:00.003-04:00

HOLY EFFING CREEP--I just finished the dress I've been working on for nearly a year! Pictures will be coming soon, I'm so absolutely relieved that it's done. My dressform looks really naked now, though.

Let's do a rundown of other works in progress, shall we?

- Mignonette stockings: Working on the leg of the second one, now.

- Pen sweater: Still working on the bottom band, this one might take a while

Yeah, that's right, only two WIPs for now! Sadly, I have a feeling it shall not remain so for long. I want to make an HP-themed sweater for the next movie, which might take precedence over the Pen sweater. Also, one of my coworker's is expecting a baby, so I was considering making a sweater for it. A baby sweater probably wouldn't take too long, but it's not something I'm super-excited to knit. We'll see....

...and the other one

2008-04-12T17:56:00.003-04:00

Finished this a few days ago, but I had to take some good pictures of it because I wrote up the pattern and am offering it as a free download on Ravelry!

Click Here to download this pattern as a PDF, and don't say I never did nothin' for yeh.

YES! I'M THE GREATEST!

2008-04-10T08:40:00.002-04:00

I'm gonna live forever! (Just FYI, that clip is definitely NOT work safe. Just sayin') Here, have some FO pictures:

BlockBlockBlockBlockBlockBlockBlockBlockBlock

NOW IT'S FINISHED AND IT'S ON A CHAIR!

NOW I'M WEARING IT LIKE A CAPE!

STILL WEARING IT LIKE A CAPE!

DON'T YOU LOVE CAPES?!?1?

DOES THIS CAPE THAT I'M WEARING GIVE ME CAPE BUTT?

The green scarf is finished as well, but I still have to find the perfect outfit to take some utterly ridiculous pictures of that. Vive la France!

Blog? What blog? I have a blog?

2008-04-04T10:22:00.007-04:00

Holy crap, there are so many things on my needles right now.

When I first started knitting, I was a total project whore, with a million things going at once. Then, once I graduated to big, involved projects, I settled down and discovered that monogamy can be very satisfying and ultimately less stressful and taxing. Now, it's like I'm having a slew of mid-life crisis affairs. These little knitting flings feel so ilicit and exciting at first, but inevitably the strain of trying to divide my time and attention between all of them has become too much. It's time to stop screwing around--I have to tell my little bits on the side that our time together has to come to an end. The thing is...I'm too chickenshit to do this in person. I hate hurting feelings, ya know? But what other possible solution could there b...hey, I've got it! I'll break up with these projects on my BLOG! I love it when people post their personal business on the Internet.

Dear Hemlock Ring Blanket,

First, I'd just like to say thank you, because you've really taught me a lot. Remember that first night when we cast on, and I (rather sheepishly) told you that I'd never done a magic loop before? You were so kind, Hem, so brave and forgiving, despite what could not have been the most comfortable of cast-ons. We got through it though, you know? We stuck together and powered through those first awkward rounds, and after that, wow! You just blossomed, right in my hands. That was special for me. Really. We've had some great times together.

Still, I think we've got to face facts here. The project I fell in love with is now surrounded by inches upon inches of feather and fan. And that's not a bad thing! I like a blanket with some meat on its bones, but...and please don't think I'm shallow here, I'm just trying to be honest--going out on the town with you has become sort of difficult. It's hard to find a bag that will acommodate a project of your...size. I used to love sitting at the table with you on my lap at Knit Happens, people would look at us and smile. "What a cute couple," they would think to themselves. Lately though, I feel kind of dwarfed by you. Truthfully, these days I just find the idea of working on you very unattractive. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be harsh, but there it is.

Now, I know this is tough. Just last night I started working the cute little (ha!) border that goes around your edge, and when that's done you will be off my needles forever. I can't bring myself to lie here--after that I'm gonna block you, and I know you're going to be a total wet blanket about it and try and stretch it out into a big long THING. And I guess that's your right--I owe you that much.

It's been fun, okay? But baby, it's over.

Sara

Dear Printemps,

We both agreed this was going to be a quick and casual affair, so I know you won't bear me any ill will when I tell you that it's time for us to part. It's not you, it's me--you're fabulous. I still get a little thrill when I see you lying there, in all your grass-green cashmere glory. I hadn't knit a scarf in so long, and then BANG! We just sort of found each other. The creative energy you inspired me to was so pleasant, so easy and fun. Remember that afternoon we spent, cuddled up on the couch together watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Magical.

Unfortunately, like so many passions that burn too brightly, too quickly, this tryst has run its course. We'll have one or two more dates, where we'll make awkward conversation and try and recapture the spark that once so enflamed us. It will be during one of these tiresome sessions that I'll look down at my hands, only to find that you're binding off. I'll feel a little sad, but mostly relieved that it's finally over. We were never meant for forever.

Sara

Zelda!

2008-01-08T15:24:00.000-05:00

I was messing around with technology I own, but never use (digital camera & iMovie) yesterday, and ended up with this. The song is the theme from 'Lunar', an old Playstation game, which is probably the most ridiculous thing in my iTunes library. Enjoy!

New Year's Sock to the Face

2008-01-03T08:24:00.000-05:00

akemashite o-medetō-gozaimasu!

Happy 2008, everybody! I hope you all had a great couple of holidays and aren't too broken up about being back at work this week. Above is the sum total of my vacation knitting--1 sock, to match the other sock I finished months ago. I'm very happy with these guys, which fit fine and are quite comfortable. The Lorna's Laces sock yarn is definitely not my favorite to work with, and I still hold that it looks a little anemic knit up, but they are dang comfy socks.

Costa Rica was AWESOME. I was still sick as a dog before we left, but Doc P got me some antibiotics to take and, along with copious amounts of DayQuil and Mucinex, I pleased to report I made a full recovery. My usual strategy with sickness is to buckle down, take some advil, drink lots of orange juice, and maybe sleep a little more than the usual 5.5-6 hours. Thus, this was my first time taking DayQuil. Wow. I don't know what the normal reaction to this stuff is, but my understanding was that it's supposed to alleviate your symptoms but not knock you out so you can still be productive. NO. You guys, I got totally messed up on DayQuil. A little plastic medicine cup of neon orange syrup is akin to a couple of strong drinks, as far as my body is concerned. Still, one happy-lala plane ride later, and we were in lovely, temperate Costa Rica which would make anyone feel better.

We stayed with my aunt and uncle while we were there, and it was lovely to see their family again. My mom and her sister are only 14 months apart, and had kids at roughly the same time. Our families have always gotten along real well, and my cousins and my siblings and I have had some great times together. This, combined with the beautiful surroundings, lack of itinerary, lack of TV and Internet, and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach, made this vacation something I hadn't had in a really long time...a VACATION. Ahhh. Next year in Costa Rica!

Anyway, I'm feeling rested, roasted, and ready to rock. 2008, do your worst!

Slow Wasting Disease

2007-12-20T17:19:00.001-05:00

So, we're leaving for Costa Rica tomorrow morning, and I am still full of the slow wasting disease that has plagued me since Monday. I honestly can't remember the last time I was this sick. I guess the downside of being a pretty hardy person is that the illness that eventually takes you down will be a freakin' atomic bomb of a virus. Anyway, I hope everyone has a nice holiday. Here are some pictures of my latest sweater, which I made for my mom but is being modeled by me. The Cinnabar Pullover, by Kate Gilbert, from Interweave Knits Fall 2007.

With some grass, collar down

With some berries, collar up

Detail of collar

Crappy picture, delicious meal

2007-12-05T09:49:00.000-05:00

This picture is a sad portrayal of last night's dinner, which was pretty tasty, I must say. I like to try and figure out what C and I are having for dinner ahead of time, usually while I'm at work, so I can do my shopping at TJ's right after I leave. Yesterday afternoon found me running very low on culinary ideas, and I walked into my little grocery store with vague notions of getting some kind of frozen meal I could prepare quickly.

I kind of wandered aimlessly around in there, exhibiting a behavior I abhor in other grocery shoppers. Shopping for food is a very strategic thing--you have to plan it out like a military operation. Get in, get out, and try not to get stuck behind the woman with the doublewide stroller. I'm probably the most intolerant grocery shopper I know.

ANYDANGWAY, surrounding myself with food eventually did the trick, and an idea began to form in my skullchest. I grabbed a couple cans of Cuban-style black beans, a box of quinoa, two big, sweet red peppers, and a package of pomegranate seeds. Trendy ingredients in hand, I headed back to HQ. Here's what transpired, for those interested.

Pomegranate Quinoa with Vegetables

Quinoa

Ingredients
- 1 cup quinoa
- 2 cups water
- 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
- 1 tbl. honey
- hot chili oil
- 1 small package fresh pomegranate seeds
- salt and pepper to taste

Place quinoa and water in a pot and bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and allow to simmer until almost all water is absorbed. Stir in red pepper flakes, honey, salt, pepper, and a dash of chili oil. Turn off the heat and allow quinoa to cool slightly, then stir in pomegranate seeds.

Vegetables

Ingredients
- 2 large, sweet red peppers, diced large
- 1 can cuban-style black beans (TJ's)
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. cumin
- lemon juice
- 1/2 bag frozen, fire roasted corn (TJ's)
- bit of mozzerella, grated

On low heat, heat a little olive oil in a deep skillet and saute the garlic for a minute or so. Add the onions and continue cooking until slightly translucent. Add cumin and coat onions and garlic mixture with it, then add the peppers and turn heat up slightly. Cook for a few minutes more before adding the black beans, then the corn. Once corn is totally non-frozen anymore, add a dash of lemon juice to the skillet and one more gentle stir. Over the top, sprinkle a bare handful of mozzerella cheese. Once the cheese has melted, turn off the heat.

To serve, put a large spoonful of quinoa on your plate and form it into a flat disc. Spoon the vegetable mixture over the quinoa disc and enjoy!

Notes

I lovedLovedLOVED the pomegranate seeds in the quinoa, but the flavoring of the quinoa could have been a little better for me. I think next time I'll try turmeric or curry powder to get a bit more fragrance, in addition to the spice. Still, a very tasty first attempt.

Endings, beginnings

2007-11-29T12:58:00.000-05:00

Wow, I really took a hard fall off the Nab lo, po' mo! wagon, didn't I?

In my defense, I have been knitting up a storm. Knitting to the extent that I am nearly finished with the Cinnabar pullover. Currently both sleeves are being increased on my absurdly long #6 circs, the back and front have been seamed at the shoulders, and the placket and collar have been placketed and collared. I'm really looking forward to being done with this sweater,not only because I think it's going to be beautiful and delight-inducing to Mama P, but because after it's finished, I can get started on Sara's Next Big Idea.

Getting Big Ideas is something I do a lot of. Following through with them, on the other hand, not so much (See Nab lo, 'po mo!). It seems that the major killers of my Big Ideas are most often 1)laziness, 2)telling people about them, and 3)insecurity. I'd wager that numbers 1 and 3 are really common amongst most would-be Big Idea havers. Big Ideas are fine when they exist only in your head, but once you decide to act on them, it means putting yourself and your Idea on the line, out in public for everyone to see. Number 2 is a little trickier, and is arguably the biggest stumbling block for me. For some reason, when I tell the public at large that I am going to do something, it becomes exponentially harder for me to do it. I have absolutely no idea why this is, and it's something I absolutely have to get over, because you can't go through life living entirely in your own head, can you?

When I was younger, that is how I lived, pretty much. I existed intensely in my own world, and I moved through life with filters of my own devising firmly in place. Maybe it's because I was so shy (to this day, meeting new people is really scary for me and I have a difficult time making conversation.) Over the years, my imagination and I have learned how to live with each other, despite countless nights lying awake in bed with my mind working on overdrive to scare itself senseless. There are good things about it too, though--I have always been happy being by myself, and my ability to tell myself stories has served me well over the years. I think the hardest thing for the creative (and talented or not, I am creative), is moving something out of a realm of infinite possibilities (i.e. your brainbox) and creating a hard copy in real life. I've always been good at the Idea part, it's the realization that I have trouble with, because when a first attempt doesn't coalesce to my satisfaction, I get discouraged.

I want to go back to school. I want to go to school for apparel design. But, I'm scared that I'm not good enough.

Thus, my Next Big Idea. I have been having a lot of ideas lately for a "collection" of pieces, and I've been making sketches of all of them in my ratty old notebook. I have to say, I'm getting really excited about these ideas, so here is my plan:

1) Finish Cinnabar
2) Start work on my collection
3) Use collection as a portfolio for applying to design school

In addition to it being a good idea to have a portfolio of pieces I am proud of, I think that finishing a whole lot of self-designed pieces will bolster my self-confidence about my abilities. I'm not sure if I'll write patterns for any of them, since that is not ultimately what I want to do, but I might. Also, I'm not sure how much I'll be posting on the Internets about these new projects because, for now at least, it feels very personal.

Dang, I sure wrote a lot of words. If you made it to the end here, I tip my hat to you!

Gobble gobble!

2007-11-22T23:11:00.000-05:00

Ahh, another Thanksgiving meal come and gone. My belly is full, there's a tidy tupperware of Thanksgiving in the fridge, and I was able to pull off a complicated bit of confectionary successfully. Life is sweet. I made the chocolate hedgehogs pictured above and below to bring to my parents' house, and they were rather a challenge. There were a lot of steps involved and some of them were extremely fiddly, but yes, they turned out as they were supposed to. They are a little sweet for my taste, but hey, Thanksgiving is about decadence, right? Many thanks to Ann for sending me this recipe. You can find it here if you're interested. I warn you, it's a lot of work. They are kind of dear though, aren't they? Hope everyone had a great holiday, and that you all get the rest of the week off!

Autumn Stumpcakes

2007-11-22T00:55:00.000-05:00

As I'm about 3/4 of the way through my ambitious Thanksgiving pastry endeavor, I think it's appropriate to post a recipe. This isn't what I'm making at the moment, but Sarah and I got together last Saturday to bake, drink wine, and watch Miss Marple lay the smackdown on all sorts of unsavory types. This recipe was one of the ones in the Cupcake Deck I got for her cakeday. We also used her (pink!) silicone cupcake pan, which worked just as amazingly as I suspected it might. Anyway, these lil' cakes are delicious. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 large eggs
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, cut into 1/8 - 1/4 inch pieces

Frosting
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
6 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 - 2 tsp. whole milk

Directions

Cupcakes

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Sift all the dry ingredients together and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar, and pumpkin until smooth. Mix in eggs and crystallized ginger, and then slowly mix in the dry ingredients until everything is incorporated. Spoon batter into your muffin tin. If you are using a silicone one, you can fill the cups all the way to the top. If not, place cupcake papers into a metal tin and fill halfway. Bake until firm, about 20 minutes or so.

Cool on rack.

Frosting

Beat butter, cream cheese, and vanilla until smooth. Add powdered sugar until frosting is smooth and light.

Set aside 1/4 cup of frosting, and mix cinnamon into this until it turns a light brown color. Add a touch of milk, so frosting is thick but pourable. Place in a sealable freezer bag with all air pressed out, and cut a tiny hole in one of the bag's corners. This is now a makeshift pastry bag.

Frost cooled cupcakes with white frosting then, using the brown frosting, pipe a dot in the center of the cupcake, and two concentric circles around the dot. Drag a toothpick from the cupcake center to the edge to create the spiderweb pattern.

Georgie James at The Black Cat

2007-11-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

Friday night, Sarah and I headed out to the Black Cat to catch D.C. local indie-pop rock stars Georgie James. The band, fronted by former Q And Not U member John Davis and singer-songwriter Laura Burhenn, played a solid set, made up of songs mostly from their newly released full-length album, "Places" (This doesn't have much to do with anything, but I love the cover of this album. I got a free poster when I bought the CD at the show, and I'm thinking of getting it framed just because it's so pretty. Davis and Burhenn are attractive in a very interesting way.) Check it:

I was first exposed to GJ when they opened for fellow D.C. artist Ted Leo over the summer. Sarah and I were both wowed by the well crafted songs and catchy lyrics of this "opening band," and vowed to keep an eye out for them in the future.

The songs of "Places" manage to feel light and unencumbered, and at the same time, rich. It is a complex, "filled in" sound that, rather than getting the heart racing, causes it to beat in time to the music. The band's two vocalists Davis and Burhenn have appealing voices; they are easy to listen to without being boring, and their voices work seamlessly with the music, both enhancing and being enhanced by it. Their first full-length is a strong piece of work, and I look forward to seeing where they go in the future. GJ's blog is here, for those who would like to keep up with their doings.

"What songs do I need?" you ask:
Cake Parade
Need Your Needs
Long Week
Places

Bonus Band: Aqueduct
In a strange parallel with the Ted Leo show, the opening band for Georgie James rocked me pretty dang hard. I may be late to this party, but
check them out, the lead singer reminds me of a combination of my friend Drew and Jack Black.

Yeah...I'm out. But I had a great weekend!

2007-11-19T09:53:00.000-05:00

Well folks, my November posting streak has ended. No blogging on Saturday or Sunday, and you know what? I'm fine with that. My weekends are filled with fun delights, much too full for bloggular asides. So, I think I'm going to continue trying to post every day during the week, but the weekends will be blog free. (This will also provide more content for weekday postings.) And, with that unpleasantness out of the way, back to your regularly scheduled program.

Applying myself

2007-11-16T19:34:00.000-05:00

I spun enough Mr. Belvedere (thanks, Carolina!) to ply with my fruit stripes MD Sheep & Wool yarn. Here are the two skeins, ready to rock...

First comes the soft ball stage...

I had to use my old, big drop spindle to ply, since the new one is a bit too wee. This one worked great, though. I love the look of the yarn--so different from the singles themselves.

Hee! Just look at it! Reminds me of Noro, sort of. I'm pleased, but what will I make with it?

It's kinda like...

2007-11-15T11:33:00.000-05:00

...finding out a celebrity goes to the same hairdresser as you? Maybe that's too much--the same Starbucks as you? Anyway, I just found out Kim O'Donnel brines her turkey! My dad has been brining our bird for years now, and I am convinced it is hands down the best way to prepare a turkey for cooking. Oh man, I can't wait for Thanksgiving!

Seasonal Snapshot

2007-11-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

Hooray for fall! Definitely my favorite season of all time. It was a little too warm for my taste, today, but what can you do? The above was taken in Tatsuno, Nagano-ken, Japan. I find myself thinking about Japan a lot these days--I think it's because I'm getting a bit itchy in my current state. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy and content, but I'm ready for the Next Big Thing. The funny thing is, it's proving difficult to make myself act on it. I know I want to go back to school, but for some reason, I can't make any moves to set that in motion. I also know that I don't want to live in Virginia for the rest of my life, and I would love to live overseas again. Things are great right now, but a change is definitely in order for the future. What shall it be, I wonder? I tend not to be overly proactive, but things just have a way of working themselves out, don't they? Eh, this isn't a particularly thought-provoking or compelling journal entry...it's a nice snapshot though, right?

Tiny Nose Tuesday

2007-11-13T22:18:00.000-05:00

Tough, but fair

2007-11-12T20:58:00.000-05:00

Ugh, today was really rough. I didn't get enough sleep over the weekend, so waking up this morning was nothing short of hideous. I nearly decided to work from home, but it's a good thing I didn't because when I attempted to boot up my computer once I got to the office, it didn't. Jerms talked to Boneman and eventually ran a repair through a boot disk. This sort of got it running, but it became alarmingly clear that my Lenovo's insides were all messed up. Oddly enough, it was working fine over the weekend, when I was using it to listen to the Time Traveler's Wife. It's possible the thing became sentient and figured out how to time travel, which would account for the fucked up sectors. ANYWAY, after I yelled "Stupid Chinese piece of crap" at it, and growled about "this is why I hate PCs," I enlisted Rim to work his magic. He was still working on it when I left for the day, a day that amounted to a total waste.

Things were looking up once I got home. I had a cup of tea, and listened to some Agatha Christie while working on la Cinnabar:

Eventually, I put myself down for a nap. Tomorrow, please be better!

Top 5: Video Clips

2007-11-11T23:16:00.001-05:00

I don't usually post stuff like this, but I'm interested in seeing what other people might post for this. There is a meme going around for top 5 favorite musical artists, so maybe that an influence. Anyway, here's the idea:

Top 5 Favorite Internet Video Clips
Post your top 5 favorite videos found on the internets. Can be from television shows or movies, or original internet fare. Please post links or embedded video into your blog.

My Top 5 (No particular order)

#1 Flight of the Conchords -- If You're Into It

There's something about this video that just gets me every time--Jemain's deep voice paired with the ridiculous lyrics, dang, is there anything funnier?

#2 Buck wild! (Wonder Showzen)

This is a perennial favorite. It's really only the first 16 seconds of this video that is essential, but it's the only version you can find on YouTube. This is from season 1 of Wonder Showzen, sadly off the air now.

#3 Predator Vs. Predator (Human Giant)

"Come on man, I got a full beard!" Classic.

#4 He Really Gave It To Me (Derrick Comedy)

This is such a simple concept, but it works so well.

#5 You Are A Pirate (Lazy Town)

Uh...this is from an Icelandic kid's show called Lazy Town. It went through something of a vogue with CS, and every now and then someone will bring it up again. It's utterly bizarre, but also kind of catchy. (#5 is always the hardest to come up with.)

Eleventh Hour

2007-11-10T23:36:00.000-05:00

No time to post. Three hours of Time Traveler's Wife to go. Meeting is 11AM tomorrow. DS is charging. Commencing work on Cinnabar Pullover and Vanilla Coke Zero.

Is it just me...

2007-11-09T08:55:00.001-05:00

...or is Greg Daniels, executive producer of The Office, kind of adorable?

Sarah, you'll back me up on this, right?

Knitzel's Epistle to Mimosaknits

2007-11-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

Dear Carolina,

ZOMG!1!1 THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU11!!! This stuff is like crack, seriously. You reign.

Cordially,
Sara

BookThoughts: The Time Traveler's Wife

2007-11-07T09:34:00.000-05:00

My book club is reading The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, for our next meeting, which is on Sunday. I started listening to the audiobook on Monday, but I think I am going to make it; as of today I'm about halfway through. So far it is an entertaining read, but I do think it is flawed in a few places.

I suppose my main issue with the book is that I'm not sure about the relationship between the two main characters, Henry and Clare. They are the titular time traveler and his wife, and their story is an odd one. Henry has a rare genetic defect that causes him to spontaneously time travel, jumping through time with no control over where/when he will end up, and no idea of how long it will take him to dissolve back into his present. These trips in time begin with him appearing, totally naked, in surroundings that may or may not be familier to him. Henry finds himself having to hide, pickpocket, brawl, or run from unfriendly strangers on a regular basis.

Sometimes he meets his past-self on these trips. In one scene, a present Henry, aged 15, and a Henry from 3 months in the future meet, and engage in what the author describes as "inflagrante delicto," which, Henry tells the reader, is something everybody would take the opportunity to do, if only they could. So...it's a given that every person, if given the opportunity to do so, would bone him or herself? Really? Because that is sooo not the first thing that comes to my mind when I contemplate the possibility of meeting a future version of myself. Would it be considered masterbation? Incest? Does it indicate one might be homosexual? It's a weird thing to consider.

Aaaanyway, the relationship between Henry and Clare. Right. It's difficult to summarize concisely, so this might be a little confusing, but I'll give it a shot. Basically, beginning when she is 6, up until she is 18, Clare is visited, as a girl, by a much older, time displaced Henry. A Henry who, in his present, is already married to Clare. In real time, Henry is 8 years older than Clare--he meets for the first time when she is 20 and he is 28. However, she meets him for the first time when she is 6, and he is in his thirties. Henry becomes a fixture of Clare's childhood: they have a secret meeting place where she leaves clothes and food for him, he helps her with her homework and teaches her French. He plays with her. He gives her a list of dates that describe when he will appear in her time. As she grows up into a young woman, Clare falls in love with Henry and tries with increasing determination to get him to have sex with her. He refuses...until she is 18. When she finally meets him in real time, he is obviously very confused; her childhood is filled with memories of him, and he has never seen her before.

My feelings of unease about this story are difficult to condense into words. I guess "creeped out" says it best. I think what the author is trying to get at is that the souls of these two people are so entwined, the number of years between them is irrelevant. I have to wonder though, would you really be able to fall in love with someone you met at age 6, who essentially played a part in raising you? There is a scene in the book, where Clare is 13 and Henry is 36 or so, and Henry momentarily loses track of how old Clare is. He has trouble distinguishing her from the Clare of his present, his 28 year old wife. It's certainly an interesting premise for a story, but I think the author misses by making Clare's early relationship with Henry too comfortable.

Another problem I have is that it feels to me that Henry is always in a position of dominance and "I know best" condescension over Clare. Her love for him constantly takes the form of submissive patience and deference. I feel that this is a miss as well. Clare grows up to be an artist, fashioning huge sculptures out of paper, and I have a hard time believing that a woman with the imagination and fire it takes to be an artist would behave so meekly. It's as though she is forever taking the role of the little girl, and he the much older man in the meadow. I dislike the idea of him "grooming" her to be the perfect little wifey for him, although I don't know if that is an intentional implication.

Anyway, I still have a lot to go, so maybe the dynamics of the characters will change somewhat as they get older. As I said, it is an entertaining story, and some of the scenes the author sets up are quite clever and funny. At any rate, I think we can definitely have an interesting discussion about it, which is the important thing, I guess.

Tiny Nose Tuesday

2007-11-06T18:38:00.000-05:00

So what you're saying is...

2007-11-05T07:48:00.000-05:00

...I need to knit a beret?

Tams and berets are a big look for fall/winter 2007, and they're popping up all over the place.
As a person with a small noggin, I like the idea of a hat that perches gently on top of my head, like a turtledove, instead of clinging tightly to it and simultaneouly messing up my hair and making my noodle look even smaller than it is.

I don't even want to think about how much a beret from Vuitton or Pollini would cost, and besides, I don't really care for either of the above examples. Luckily, we've got a bevy of fancy new offerings from some fab designers. Here are three of my favorite patterns, listed in order of thriftiness.

Top your mop with a hat that flops

Pecan Pie
design by Nancy Merchant

Price: Cheap as free
Where do I get it? Knitty: Fall 2007
Yarn requirements: 1 skein each of Cascade 220 Tweed and Noro Kureyon
I really love the combination of the Kureyon with a solid, and the fact that the possibilities for this hat are pretty endless. Very chic, but interesting at the same time.

December Lights Tam
design by Mary Jane Mucklestone

Price: $7.99
Where do I get it? From Interweave, or your LYS
Yarn requirements: 8 different colors of Rauma Finullgarn, 1 ball each

I would change the colors on this tam to make it a little less flamboyent, but I think the pattern itself is very pretty. It's a neat combination of modern and traditional, and again, the opportunities to "make it your own" on this are pretty endless.

Gem
design by Kim Hargreaves

Price:Approximately $35
Where do I get it? Heartfelt, which you can buy from Kim's website
Yarn requirements:Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Rowan Kidsilk Classic

Lovely and elegant, this cap is yet one more reason to buy Kim's new book. A closer look reveals glass beads on the band, ramping up the luxe quotient on this pattern quite a bit. Luckily, I'm pretty sure affected waifiness is not required to wear this hat.

Spin me like a top

2007-11-04T17:30:00.000-05:00

My wonderful dad, the indefatigueable Doc P, turned a new drop spindle for me this weekend. Check this baby out:

Gorgeous, no? I'm very pleased. Aside from a few minor things, it works very well, and inspired me to spend Sunday morning spinning:

I bought the fiber for this yarn at MD Sheep & Wool last year, a clear clamshell with 7 little bumps of different colored roving inside, that cost $5. I finally took it down off the shelf, prepped and combined the different colors, and off I went, spinning it all up into the crazy stuff that is currently residing on my swift. I want to get some dark brown or black to ply it with, so a trip to Springwater may be in order soon. Right now, though, I'm just sort of enjoying looking up at it every now and then. Does it remind anyone else of that Yikes! Fruit Stripes gum? I keep expecting a skateboarding zebra to appear and try and turn over the apartment. Luckily I've got my trusty elephant gun sitting right beside me, just like every Sunday. Bleagh, I don't want to go to work tomorrow.

Whipped

2007-11-03T23:21:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting at the table de TinyHouse, facing our wall 'o windows/glass patio door, and every now and then, a big ole firework explodes somewhere in the city. I'm not sure why there are fireworks going off, but more importantly, where are they being deployed? Our apartment is on the city side of the building, not the water side--is someone shooting off professional fireworks from one of the office buildings? I don't think Clint believes that there are really fireworks outside, and that I'm just messing with him, but seriously, I saw them.

My Cinnabar is humming along nicely, so far. I've just finished the decreases for the waist shaping and now I'm increasing back out. The linen stitch border was fiddly, but kind of fun, and though I'm now onto boring miles of stockinette, the waist shaping keeps it somewhat interesting. The sweater is actually going to be for my mom, who is currently working on her first project! She picked a somewhat challenging pattern to begin with, but I know she can handle it. Mama P picked out the Coronet hat, from Knitty, and we picked out some nice, red Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed aran today at Knit Happens for it. She's going through some sort of red phase, I guess. Hurrah for spreading the knitting bug! Hip, hip, hurray!

Brainbow

2007-11-02T12:48:00.000-04:00

Uno sock down, and ichi to go.

Is it me, or does this sock just look kind of...rough? Like it's lead a really hard life, working at a rock quarry or something. This guy is actually a second attempt at my first rainbow sock, knit during the great Rhinebeck weekend of '07. I made it all the way past the heel on that sock before deciding that it just looked way too degenerate keep. I (foolishly) assumed that the odd bumps and blemishes were a result of that weekend's excitement/knitting in the car (which I almost never do). So, rrrip rip rip the rows on the sock! RipriprowsSssocksockthesock! (Yes, that is a Parappa the Rappa' homage--god, I am so awesome.)

Unfortunately, those bumps seem to be either an intrinsic part of the pattern, the yarn, my knitting, or some combination thereof, because they manifested again almost immediately. The second attempt was not wholly without merit, as the heel looks much nicer on this incarnation of sock #1. I also deviated from the pattern when I got to the toe, because following the instructions would have resulted in a too-big sock. The decreases for the toe in the pattern are graduated, so you would work one decrease round, then knit X number of rounds, decrease, work X-1 number of rounds, etc.

Instead, I worked my normal toe: Work a decrease round, knit one round, decrease round, knit round, until there are about 20 stitches left, then kitchener the toe and weave in the ends. The toe called for in the pattern does not account for feet of different sizes, which is a major flaw, in my opinion. Instead of instructing knitters to work six shortrow wedges for the foot, she should have said to work an even number of shortrow wedges until the foot was 1.5" (or however long the toe in the pattern is) shorter than the wearer's foot. What is point of handknit socks if they are too big for your own dang feet?

NaBloPoMo Kickoff

2007-11-01T11:52:00.000-04:00

Aka, National Blog Posting Month. Aka, I will post to my blog every day in the month of November.

Some may have noticed that I am less than good about posting regularly to this Internet blog journal. Others may have realized that there has been very little insect pornography, or that Zelda appears rather more infrequently than originally implied. A small percentage find my writing style so utterly charming that every day I don't post draws the icy hand of death just a little bit closer. The bottom line is, I have proved an unsatisfactory webnet diary writer. And I want to be better.

Thus, my participation in an utterly meaningless exercise: NaBloPoMo

It's very hard for me to look at that acronym (is it an acronym?), so henceforth, I shall refer to it as "Nab lo, Po' Mo!" Don't know who Po' Mo is, or what he's nabbing, but it's a heck of a lot easier on the eyes than NaBloPoMo.

Anyway, starting today, I will attempt to post something every day, for the entire month of November. The rules I, myself, will adhere to:

- No fair posting just to post. If I don't find it interesting, informative, or at least amusing, I will not post it.

- As long as the post adheres to rule No. 1, no set length is required

- Once a day means once a day. If I post twice in one day, I still have to post every day for the rest of the month. No hording posts.

- I will give myself a 1 day grace period for pictures, so if I post something that needs pictures, I have 24 hours from the time of that post to take/upload those picture.

Hmmm, that looks pretty good. Am I forgetting anything? Any other rules you think I'm overlooking, please don't hesitate to comment and let me know. In the immortal words of Dr. Tobias Funke,

"Let the great experiment begiiin!"

Umm, the holidays ARE coming up...

2007-10-30T13:06:00.001-04:00

...and if someone wanted to get me this book, well, I'd be just tickled. Seriously,

how effing cool is this? Gah, I love Kim Hargreaves!

Lucky (Posted late, pictures to come)

2007-10-25T11:43:00.000-04:00

Guys, this morning, stumbling into my poorly climate controlled office at the most godawful of hours, I wanted one thing. One thing that was truly impossible at that moment to have. I wanted lamb chili for breakfast.

I wanted to buy a paper cup of searing hot lamb chili garnished with sour cream and a few tortilla chips from a 4H stand, and eat it in upstate New York. I'd say I'm suffering severe Rhinebeck withdrawel, wouldn't you? To say I had a great time there would be putting it mildly.

I've always liked the expression "hitting the road." It sounds carefree and slightly dangerous (probably because of the "hitting" part); it makes me think of bands on tour, or tough lady outlaws wearing leather driving gloves in convertibles, on the run from johnny law. A couple weeks ago, me and a gaggle of other fine babes TOTALLY hit the road. Elspeth comandeered a gigantic flexcar, later dubbed the S-Car, so Steph, Ann, Nicki, Aimee and I could all pile in and leave Virginia behind for the astounding beauty of upstate New York. Amazingly, it IS fall, and we got to see plenty of evidence as we trundled further north and the trees got more and more vivid.

After a few well-timed stops in Ellenville (Lunch: Blue cheese, yukon gold potato, truffle oil pizza, and yam curry soup) and an amazing fruit stand where Ann used to work, we made it to the Super 8 in Kingstown (?) and met up with Carolina and Lisa, the last two members of our supergroup. Wine and cheese followed.

The festival itself was flippin' amazing! Gorgeous weather made for a fantastic two days of shopping, squeezing, sniffing, and scarfing. I didn't actually bring a camera, which I rue now, but luckily I brought a good chunk of Rhinebeck home with me. (Actually, this is but mere fraction of a raindrop in the Rhinebeck ocean, but it's dang purty.)

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Cheap tweed! This stuff was such a steal, and I already have plans for the charcoal gray. Did someone say cables?

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The golden rule: She who has the golden yarn rules.

[IMAGE]
Emerald cashmere. 'nuff said

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Buttons! Apparently I have a weakness for them.

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One of my prize possessions of the weekend; a glass shawl pin from Moving Mud

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Prize possession No. 2: My very own swift! Ann and Nicki and I are swift sibs now.

I just got TAGGED

2007-10-18T16:40:00.001-04:00

Ann from Fidget just tagged my ass.

Here are the rules:
Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they've been tagged.

8 Random Things

- I have never seen the movie Titanic, not even a few minutes of it on TV

- I loooove black licorice. I can eat a whole box of it all by myself.

- I'm horribly shy about meeting new people

- I can rewatch, reread, and relisten to movies, books, and audiobooks an incredible amount of times. Although, they have to be quality, and I have to have something to do with my hands.

- I could probably sing all the songs from "Into the Woods" by heart. Maybe the dialog, too.

- When the house is messy, I get stressed out. Dishes, however, don't seem to bother me. Go figure.

- I love video games! Two of the three consoles in TH right now were purchased by me. I am a sucker for fun, new toys.

- I prefer animals to babies

As it is time for tea and sock knitting, instead of commenting on blogs and linking them, I invite anyone who reads my blog and hasn't been tagged to go ahead and take this challenge, and leave a comment on this post. Yeah, I never said I wasn't lazy, I never said that.

Sliiiding backwards

2007-10-18T12:03:00.000-04:00

The Good

See? I'm almost done. So close to being done. So very, very close. The only thing standing between me and the glory of finishing this mo'fo is 6 inches of boring stockinette desert. It's made purely of nylon and acrylic, but it's getting blocked anyway. Even if I can't change its size or shape, it'll add a bit more evenness to the stitches, and a good washing can only help. Then, seaming and possible fringing, and it will be ready for gifting. I can't wait to get out from under its green/gray tyranny--it looks like something an eccentric arithmancy professor would wear, who was also the head of Slytherin.

The Bad

This yarn tries my patience like no other. It looked so pretty in the skein, remember? Oh those times, when I was innocent and unafraid, how I wish they were here again. I'm giving this yarn one more chance before I entirely give up on it. Witness the Rainbow Socks from the latest Magknits. The leg and foot are worked in short rows, which I think might be the only cure for the horrendous pooling I've seen from this yarn in every other attempt.

I have to say that these socks and I got off to a bit of a rocky start. The pattern is, in my opinion, not written in the clearest way possible. For instance, the cuff is divided between four needles, and the short rows begin with needle 1. You knit 2 stitches on needle 1, then do your turn stitch, then purl 3 stitches, some of which are on needle 4 WTF? REALLY??? Now, I consider myself pretty good at reading patterns, but this was so counterintuitive to me that it took a full 15 minutes to decide that there was no other way it could work. I wish the designer had added that in the notes section, because I can't have been the only one confused by this. I finally -get- how it's done, though, so maybe there's hope after all. Everyone, pray for these socks.

Ravelry is wearing me out,

2007-10-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

but the knit goes on!

Okay, so after an invite to Ravelry mysteriously appeared in my inbox, I've been scrambling to get all of my knitting information carefully uploaded, documented, and notarized. At this point, the site is amazingly well developed, which makes me want to do nothing more than sit in front of a computer and use the hell out of all the features. This is wearing me out. Seriously--it's almost too deep to use efficiently (timewise), because once you get in, it's hard to get out. Case in point: This past Sunday, I spent the better part of the afternoon photographing all the yarn in the house, so I could upload the pictures and catalog them under the "Stash" tab in my Ravelry profile. Not sure whether I should be embarassed to admit this, but I got really into it, and a lot of the pictures turned out kind of artsy and cool.

I think at one point, I even suggested to Clint that perhaps I had a future in yarn photography. No, no, hear me out! Plenty of people out there have more yarn than me. A LOT more yarn than me. Do these people want to spend hours and hours taking photo upon photo of yarn? I doubt it. Besides, I really think I have an eye for this particularly specialized type of photography (see above). Now that Ravelry is this huge thing, the day of the yarn photographer has come at last. Yeah, it's a niche market, but if you charged a flat fee for each individual type of yarn, you could make a killing. Factor in that most of the people who would hire a yotog (yarn photographer) probably have more yarn then they know what to do with and BAM! Gold mine. I'm posting this on my public interweb blog in good faith, so nobody steal my awesome idea, okay? Thanks.

A handle on the Mandelbrot

The Mandelbrot scarf is humming right along, and at this rate I could probably have it finished, blocked, and seamed in the next week or so. I'm liking the colorwork on this side much better, and the yarn is servicable and soft, despite its non-wooly nature. It probably would be a little closer to completion if a) I hadn't spent all of Sunday posing balls of yarn with wooden owls, and b)Saturday hadn't included a trip to K-happs with Mama P, to pick out yarn for her new sweater.

Because when you have a bag full of happy red yarn, it is impossible not to swatch. It was really fun taking the Mama to the yarn shop and showing her that all wool is not scratchy. Plus, and this is the best part, she was so impressed with KH and all it contained that as soon as we got back to TinyHouse, she wanted a knitting lesson! I guess refresher is more apt, but I taught her how to do a long-tail cast on, and corrected her knit stitches for a bit until she remembered how to do it. I had her knit up a little swatch with the Cashsoft we bought for her sweater, just to see how it felt. After that, I dug out some yarn and needles for her to take home and play with. Could Mama P be lured away from quilting and convinced to join the horde of knitters? Only time will tell.

Okay, not knitting related either...

2007-10-04T14:30:00.000-04:00

My little brother used to love this show and watched these cartoons incessantly. I never realized how...sparkly...He-man was. Big ups to J-tron for this link. Freakin' hilarious.

Holy cowbells, Sigfreid! Rilo Kiley busted up my camera!

2007-09-27T09:34:00.000-04:00

Is there anything better than seeing your favorite band totally rock the fuck out on stage, while you stand a mere 10 feet away? Don't answer that. There is only one correct answer.

Rilo Kiley was absolutely fantasmagickal last night, performing to a sold out crowd at D.C.'s venerable 930 Club. I can't remember the last time I was at 930--(I think it might have been to see the Pietasters)It's neat how much U Street has changed, since it used to be so deserted. Now there are all sorts of bars, restaurants and boutiques there, which is great because by the time someone came out to take our money for the carpark, we were starving. After picking up our tickets at will call, Clint and I headed over to Utopia to get some dinner (thanks for the recommendation, Steph!). Everything was very tasty, and the fancy martini was extremely welcome.

Walking up to the club, a crowd of hip young urchins looked as us beseechingly, asking if we had any extra tickets. Is it wrong that telling them "no" made me feel sort of smug? I felt sort of smug. Haha, I thought, you may still be enjoying your nubile teenage years, but I WORK FULL TIME AND CAN BUY THINGS ON THE INTERNETZ WITH MY CREDIT CARD! I WIN! We got a great place on the ground floor, right smack in front of the stage, and planted ourselves there for the night.

Both opening bands were really good, and I'm definitely going to be checking them out in the future. The first, Art In Manila was from Omaha (no surprises there, Rilo Kiley used to be on Saddle Creek before they switched to Warner), and they had a great sound that kind of reminded me of Cat Power, if Cat Power rocked out just a bit more. I believe I classified them to Clint as "Pirate Ghost Music", which would be a great name for an album, or a band. The second opener, Grand Ole Party, was a very cool contrast to Art In Manila. This band consisted of a guitarist, bassist, and a badass lady lead singer/drummer. Seriously, this girl was kicking ass--very sharp vocals and catchy beats. Her voice sort of reminded me of Karen O from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but the songs themselves almost reminded me of Save Ferris' first album. Anyway, really fun stuff. Still, this was just the build up, and soon enough it was time for the rich, creamy center of the evening...

I'm not going to go into a blow-by-blow of the concert, and I didn't record the set list or anything. Instead, here are a list of things I enjoyed:

- Jenny playing the cowbell, very enthusiastically

- Blake playing some facemelting guitar solos. Seriously, I don't know why that guy has such a chip on his shoulder, he is a fantastic guitar player and songwriter.

- Blake playing the ukulele

- The crazy, under-the-sea style light show when they played 'Dreamworld'

- The giant balloons filled with gold confetti tossed around on 'Silver Lining', specifically when the balloons burst and gold confetti went everywhere

- The crazy light flashes when they played 'Moneymaker'

- 15

- Jenny dedicating 'Give A Little Love' to Blake

As always, their performance was really, really polished and every time I see them, they appear to be genuinely having a good time. Mad props to Pierre de Reeder (Bass) and Jason Boesel (Drums). They might be a bit more in the background than Jenny and Blake, but they are exceptional musicians and 100% part of the RK experience. Thanks for a great show, Rilo Kiley--let's do it again soon!

Hardcore, sweaty, project monogamy

2007-09-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

My Fall Interweave arrived a few days ago, and though I have lovingly paged through it several times, and done some planning as to what I have, what I will need to buy, and what will come first in terms of the new project queue...that's about it.

I am about halfway through the Mandelbrot Scarf, and even though it's not the most enjoyable thing in the world to knit, I will remain true and steadfast until it is finished. It helps that the colorwork is going better on this side, and there's just something about knitting the same thing for the second time--it always seems to go more quickly. It's like when you're out hiking somewhere and you get to the scenic overlook or whatever and then turn around; the return trip always seems faster because you remember things as you pass them, as opposed to seeing them for the first time. Are my wild days of project promiscuity over, or is this a momentary lapse? I think it's too early to tell. I daresay some people are bad influences in this regard, but them's the breaks, I guess. If this blog were a TV show in the 80s, this entry would be 'a very special episode' in which I learn an important life lesson, possibly about drugs, or anorexia, or using drugs to facilitate my anorexia. Aren't you glad it's just about knitting? I SURE AM.

P.S. Rilo Kiley tonight @ 930! Yeehaw!

Two Reasons Why Next Week Will Be Awesome

2007-09-18T14:33:00.000-04:00

Reason The First

I get to go see Rilo Kiley on Wednesday! Weeeee! I'm so excited. RK is far and away my favorite band, and they are 100% killer in concert. Their latest offering, "Under The Blacklight" is a wonderfully crafted album with several standout tracks. As with other Rilo Kiley albums ("Execution of All Things" comes to mind), the strength of this album lies in its ability to remain cohesive throughout, while at the same time displaying a true diversity of sound. Plus, you know, Jenny Lewis is a genius, and a goddess, and I can't decide whether I want to be her best friend or just BE her. Sigh. Her red hair is so pretty.

Reason The Second
Disclaimer: Yes, I love TV. Don't judge me.

He finally asked her out, and she said yes! The Office is back next Thursday, and my ass will be firmly glued to my couch. Isn't John Krasinski just the cutest? This is possibly the funniest show on TV, since Arrested Development's premature demise :( so I'm psyched its back.

Now, the weather just needs to stay glorious. Hurray for fall!

Pictures! Notre Dame de Grace

2007-09-16T19:01:00.000-04:00

As promised, pictures of my finished Notre Dame de Grace.

I call this one the 'Easy Rider'

I love looking out at the parking lot. I'm so glad our apartment is on this side of the building, and not the side facing the river.

Collar for president!

Detail of the back. Four more years for Collar!

Okay, enough messing around, time to go make dinner!

All Good Things

2007-09-14T08:46:00.000-04:00

Phew, things have been tres busy at Sara Inc., lately. Sweaters have been finished, socks have been destroyed, yarn has been purchased, nude hedgehogs have been photographed, and fractals are in works.

Notre Dame de Grace
So..yay! It's finished! This was a great sweater to knit, in that it didn't require too much thinking and the double moss stitch made counting very easy. For the most part the pattern is quite good, though inexplicably it has you hold the live stitches for the back neck for some purpose not disclosed in the pattern. A quick check to the Interweave errata page comes up with nothing, but I'm fairly sure this is a mistake, as there's no reason whatsoever not to bind off these stitches. I think it's also worth mentioning that the math in this pattern is beautiful--didn't have to squish or scrunch anything when doing the seaming--it all fit together in the end, just like a Miss Marple.

The greatest thing about this sweater is, obviously, the collar. The construction is wonderfully clever and the finished product stylish and neat. Will definitely remember this collar for the future. I haven't found a good button for the sweater yet, but I think it looks perfectly nice without one. (The button is totally ornamental anyway. Shhhh, don't say I said so.) I'll probably put a button on it later, but I'm in no rush. You shouldn't rush buttons.

- KNIT WITH Rowan Scottish Tweed, approx. 9 balls
- ON size 6 needles

Get thee behind me, sock

It had to be done. This sock was trouble from the start, and if I hadn't done this now, the wickedness would only have continued to gain momentum. There would have been blisters, or one would have been too tight, and the other too lose, or they would have attracted hordes of snakes and stinging flies. There's just no telling the amount of damage these socks, if completed, could have unleashed upon the world. So I ripped. Once my order from discountholywater.com arrives, I can give the yarn a good exorcising soak and another chance to make good. For now though, it's going to the bottom of the yarn pile.

Mandelbrot Scarf

Kind of missed the deadline on this one, since it was supposed to be for the JoCo concert back in August, but I made a vital miscalculation when I forgot the following: 1) I suck at colorwork, and 2) I hate colorwork. So, yeah, there were a few false starts, but it's trundling along now, and Jonathan said he would be back in the area soon. Would Jonathan Coulton lie to me? I seriously doubt it. I'm trying very hard not to work on much else while this is on the needles, mostly because I want to get it done with as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, at this point it requires so much attention, it's difficult to work on it anywhere but at home. The fractal is an ugly combo of intarsia and fair-isle, but because it's going to be seamed up the side, all the ugliness will be contained and no one will know of it but me. Interesting fact: As it stands now, if I wanted this to be the front of a sweater, it is definitely wide enough. A fractal sweater would be pretty neat, although I don't think I would make it with the fractal smack in the middle of the front. Middle of the back could be neat, but I think having it on the side would look the coolest. Hmmm...Maybe with some little mandelbrots running down the arms?

Odds and Ends

Because the aformentioned fractious fractal scarf is so picky, I obviously need some dumb knitting for when I'm feeling less than engaged. Enter the dishcloth and swatch. The dishcloth is...just a dumb dishcloth made of kitchen cotton (Sugar 'n Cream, I think). It's a nice, sitting on the couch, watching TV thing.

The swatch is pretty, pretty alpaca-silk, in a sun-ripened wheat color. I think it's going to be a cap-sleeved sweater with a gigantious neck. I'm just having fun playing with it for right now, though.

Now, for no reason except that she is cute, here's a picture of Zelda in the bathtub.

The lack of pictures of the sweater will be remedied shortly, but I've had the draft of this entry on blogger forever, and I just want to post it to get it out there, before it becomes completely obsolete. Holy crap, I'm so glad it's Friday. Also, has everyone see the new Knitty? Some very nice pieces in there!

My top 5 from the new issue:

- Muir

- Cherie Amour

- Neiman

- Pecan Pie

- Q

2007-08-22T10:48:00.000-04:00

Subscription order submitted at: 08/22/2007 06:42:08

We have received your order for
Interweave Knits Magazine. Thank you!

Please e-mail us
at mailto:InterweaveKnits@pcspublink.com if you have any
problems with your subscription.

The current issue is Fall 2007 and it
will be mailed on 09/13/2007.

Thanks again - Subscription Department

So...I have until 9/13/07 to get everything in the current queue done. Sweet merciful Interweave-imposed deadline, you could be my saving grace.

And another thing...

2007-08-20T13:10:00.000-04:00

Just keep pilin' it on, Internet.

You've won this round, you stupid collection of tubes.

Rogue knitter, bent on self-destruction

2007-08-17T08:06:00.000-04:00

In my geekified high school days, I had a friend who suckered me into doing this thing called FPS--Future Problem Solvers. It was an extra-curricular, kind of like Odyssey of the Mind, I guess. The idea was this: Sunday afternoons, you and your FPS team would get together to future problem solve a situational "fuzzy", sent to your coach's house by the shadowy FPS cabal. The fuzzies would be vaguely futuristic, and often involved terrain-mapping robots or underwater research facilities. For each fuzzy, you had to identify ten or so problems, then pick the most important problem and write ten solutions for it, and then pick the best solution out of those ten. There was a TON of writing involved, and to shore up the numbers, the packet our team sent back to the mysterious FPS judges would invariably contain several really off the wall problems and solutions. Take the fuzzy about terrain-mapping robots; the problem that we selected as most important was that hackers within the company would get into the computer system controlling the robots and screw everything up. If I remember correctly, one of our solutions was making it mandatory for all TerrainBot Co. employees to receive artificial breast implants, implants so large that ability to type would be strongly impeded. Also, without fail, at least one of our solutions would advocate implanting microchips in people's brains to control them.

After a few weeks, your team would receive its packet back, so you could read the comments made by the judges on the problems identified and solutions. While my team was given to severe Big Brotherish-tendencies and, failing that, giving out twinkies to boost moral, there was one time when my friend Justin's team took it a step too far. I can't even remember what the fuzzy was about, but I do recall that the problem they had identified involved a shortage of food in the community (which may or may not have been an undersea research facility.) Anyway, one of their solutions alluded to the possibility of consuming the very old and very young members of the society, so that the fit and able-bodied might carry on with their vital starfish research, or whatever. This solution of theirs was one found so troubling, so against everything that FPS stood for, that it begat a letter from the mystical circle of FPS officiates. The letter was a stern missive decrying the implementation of cannibalism as a means of population control, and charged Justin and his teammates with being,

"Rogue FPS-ers, bent on self-destruction."

I feel like my knitting self has gone a bit rogue, a bit self-destructivish, of late. I've got too many things on the needles right now, and it's getting overwhelming. Worst of all, I don't think the Mandelbrot Scarf is going to be finished for the JoCo concert on August 31. I should have considered, before putting it off until August, that I suck at colorwork. I'm gonna give it my best, AND work on NDdG, AND work on the Death!Socks, AND square up some other odds and ends (oh god, the Atia sweater pattern!) AND I'm going to try and be more faithful to my journal. Oh, AND I'm going to be in New York this weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to hit up some knit shops and get yarn for even more projects to pile on. AND holy crap, the new Interweave? We wants it, we wants it badly.

Man, is there anything greater than giving yourself imaginary deadlines for something you supposedly do because you love it, and then get stressed out because you might not meet them? I want to quit my job and knit.

August is National Sandwich Month

2007-08-03T12:17:00.001-04:00

Hey there, chappies! It's Friday, wot? This post is the first of a new occasional feature I'm going to call....

Things I wish I could erase from the fabric of existence!

The first is this song, Hey There Delilah, by the Plain White Ts. I have never heard of the Plain White Ts, but this guy's nasal drone and treacly, emo lyrics conjur an inexplicable wrath inside me so great that I had to stop the video halfway through because I was afraid I would punch my computer. The first time I heard this was last Friday, when Sarah and I went to see Live Free or Die Hard in Silver Spring. I was sitting in the theater, pre-show (Sarah was in the ladies), and this song started playing. In less than 30 seconds, I felt the rage coming on. Sarah returned, and asked me if I had ever heard this song before, and wasn't it awful? I was too busy kicking the seat in front of me and gnashing my teeth to reply. If you need something to get you going before hitting the gym, this song might do the trick--not because it's high energy with a good beat, but because it triggers a primal need to pummel everything in sight, possibly so you'll make noise enough to drown out this drivel.

Geekend, Wiikend

2007-07-26T11:14:00.000-04:00

No worries, no spoilers
So. It's over. No more Harry Potter, my friends. Sure, we'll have the movies, and possibly some sort of World of Harry Potter Encyclopedia thing if J.K. decides to let it be so, but mostly, it's over. I liked the last book a lot, and I'm sure that several re-readings will make me like it even more, because the shock of knowing it's over after I finished it the first time may have clouded my enjoyment just a wee bit. Luckily, it is the nature of fandom that our loved ones never really leave us, and I'm sure that Harry Potter is going to remain present in our pop-culture, and then our subculture, for many years to come. There will be conventions, folks, oh yes, there will be conventions. That is not to say that I will attend any of them, but I'm will be glad to know that they exist.

In gearing up for the release, I wanted to do something to mark the occasion for me and the HP-lovin' friends I would be attending it with. Two people in particular have been my staunch Potter compadres for the past five years. Aside from getting cast-of-Lord-of-the-Rings-style matching tattoos, I thought the best option would be something (surprise, surprise) knitted. Something small and cute, and that would stand on its own as an object, not just a prop for the midnight madness party.

Then it hit me, snitches! Snitches are small, their very name implies cuteness, and they're totally original to HP. I decided to make a passel of snitches, and then embroider the date of the release (7/21/07) and the initials of the recipient on each one. There were a few false starts with this, but the construction of the snitch body is pretty much identical to that of the knitted eyeball from a few entries back, so that part wasn't too tough. The wings posed another sort of problem--the wings are crocheted. Now I've got nothing against crochet at all. At ALL. You can do some pretty neat things with it, and it's so structural it's perfect for stuff like this. On the other hand, I have a very limited knowledge of crochet, and that made it hard to make two wings that were identical, at first. I sort of bumbled my way through one wing, and then when it was finished, I had no idea how to replicate it.

I've never read a crochet pattern, and I'm not too sure of the terminology, so writing down the method was difficult. In the end, I just bootstrapped my way through enough of them that I memorized what I was doing. Attaching the wings to the snitches was also oddly difficult to replicate, as I kept thinking of new ways to do it. At the end of the day, all the snitches are different, but I'm gonna call that a "feature of these uniquely handmade pieces" and be done with it. Embroidering on them was a pain in the ass, because embroidering on knitted fabric is never a walk in the park, and embroidering on a round knitted object stuffed with polyfill is...less good. Finally though, I struggled them all, and my pals looked happy to get them.

We had a really fun time at the release party, and I took all sorts of pictures, including one of me and Elisha knitting socks in front of a weird photo of Rupert Grint-as-Ron's disembodied head. I also took pictures of Jeremy and the rest of the ex-7 Corners bookstore bunch with Worm, who is possibly the best Harry Potter impersonator ever. Unfortunately, all these pictures were lost somewhere between my camera and my computer, so no one will ever see them. Le sigh. Luckily I had downloaded the photoshoot of Zelda the Knarl cum knitting model with the snitches earlier that day, which is great. Her agent would have killed me if they had been lost.

On a non-knitting related note, I got a Wii last weekend too! My friend Rob heard from the Internet that ToysRUs was getting shipments in Sunday, so we met up at around 8:30 before the store opened, had bagels and then went to stand in line. They were letting people in to get the consoles before the store actually opened, and I got one! It is pretty dang sweet, I have to say, and now I can play the latest Zelda game, something that truly makes me happy. Much as I like to pretend Zelda is named for Fitzgerald's mad wife, I must admit that she is probably named for my favorite vid game franchise eVAR. Also, Princess Zelda in this game? Kind of a babe. Just sayin'

Drafty

2007-07-08T19:31:00.000-04:00

For the record, I occasionally do have good intentions. For instance, I have worked a bit on writing up the Atia sweater pattern. For reals. I've got the lace panel on the front charted, and now it's just a matter of crunching a few numbers, and writing the whole mess up in an intelligent, elegant way. Sadly, I think this is why the whole computer science thing never really worked out for me. I liked doing it, I just wasn't down with the whole "documentation" thing.

Exhibit A

So, I'm feeling pretty good about myself, breaking out the old notebook and calculator and whatnot, and so what if I'm working on a pair of anklets at the same time? Variety being the spice of life and all that, it doesn't seem like such a crime and it's not like I'm getting anything out of this sweater pattern anyway, aside from another notch on my Internet-cred bedpost (credpost?). Then, I finished the anklets.

Breeze

I've gotta say, I love these. In the summer, I sort of consider pants a crime against humanity. And humidity. Anyway, I don't like wearing pants in the dingdang summer, which means I wear skirts 90% of the time.
Since I do a lot of walking, I wear sneakers maybe 75% of the time, and that means there's a very good chance I'll be wearing a skirt and sneakers together, something that I theoretically raise an eyebrow at, but am too practical to not do it. I do think that the skirt/sneakers combo is made even more dubious by above-the-shoe socks, so I try and wear anklets as much as possible. I've already worn these babies twice, and even though they're 100% wool, and thus very warm, the fact that they're anklets sort of makes up for it. They're also ridiculously bright against my navy sneaks, something I find very pleasing. So, I finished the anklets, which necessitated the beginning of another socklike project.

Pomatomus: Part II

After an ill advised attempt at knitting these socks in the Lorna's Shepard Sock I snagged at Sheep and Wool, I huffily bought another skein of my beloved Jitterbug, stuffed the Lorna's back in the basket, and started afresh on these. I really do like this pattern, and despite the fact that I keep fucking it up and having to rip back, it's going pretty quickly. Then, somehow, I started another sweater.

Notre Dame de Grace

Yeah, there was a sale. Yarn was bought. Luckily, my lust for tweed infected another. Some people like to encourage others to raise themselves above the petty material concerns of this world, and strive to reach that spiritual place within that all humans have the ability to attain. Not me though; if I'm going to roll around sinfully in a big pile of tweedy yarn, I want lots of company. Love you, Elspeth ;) This lovely mountain of tweed goodness is going to be the Notre Dame de Grace pullover from the summer 2007 Interweave. Weeeeee!

Pie

Apple pie from two weeks ago. There was a pie for the 4th as well, but no pictures were taken, and it was eaten so quickly I couldn't even get a leftovers shot. Ah well. Just imagine the most amazing pie your puny brain can conjure, then put some whipped cream on the top--that's what it looked like.

Quickly, quickly

2007-06-25T14:52:00.000-04:00

iCozy

Worked this up in leftover sock yarn from this and this, and there's no end in sight. I will have this sock yarn until the day I die. Anydangway, the tweed stitch pattern is from my Harmony book of stitch patterns, which makes a nice firm fabric.

The top flap is garter stitch with a crochet border, and the button came from my small collection of found buttons. There's a small opening on the top for headphones.

Honestly, this isn't the greatest design for an iPod cozy, but it's serving its purpose well enough and looks cute.

Pieday Friday 6/22/07

Apricot Pie, based on a recipe from the Internet. Really easy filling: Sliced fresh apricots, flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Crust was my own expirimental conoction of flour, butter, salt and ice water. Not so good--I think I'll use my mom's shortening/butter crust next time.

Eyes on the Prize

2007-06-19T15:15:00.000-04:00

June may not have been a prolific month for blogging, but it has yielded a mighty crop of finished knitted goods. Father's Day was last Sunday, and prior to that most hallowed of days, I had decided to make my Pop a gloriously knitted eyeball, complete with all those important little muscles that allow your eye to do all the things it does. Being an ophthalmologist, I knew he would appreciate such a curiousity, and being a pediatric ophthalmologist, I thought that maybe the children in his office would be less likely to spit, scratch, scream, and hit, if they had a huge, cuddly knitted eyeball staring at them menacingly from the desk. (The poor behavior of these children is no reflection on my dad, who is an excellent and caring doctor, children are just generally poorly behaved.)

I sort of made the ball part up as I went, by casting on 12 stitches and knitting in the round, increasing in four panels about every other row or so, then knitting even for a few rows, and decreasing in the same manner. It's not a perfect sphere, but I bet the human eye isn't either. I turned to the Internet for the number and placement of the muscles. Did you know the place at the back of the eye where all the muscles converge is called the annulus of Zinn? How great is that? It sounds like some sort of magical, amulet-housing temple.

Danica

Finished up the Danica scarf, which blocked beautifully (as I knew it would.) It's a little short, but blocking helped quite a bit and I think it would look quite nice with a pretty brooch or pin. Must find one to give along with it. I think I'll give it to my mom for her birthday, since it's in the autumn.

Big Bamboo

These turned out to be a bit of an adventure. You may remember from a previous post that I had finished one, and was wending my way towards finishing the second. I wended and wended, until I wended right out of yarn.

There was nothing for it but to rip back the toe of the finished sock, use that yarn to shore up the second sock, then finish the toes in some extra pink sock yarn I just happened to have left over from another project.

So yeah, they took forever, but I never stopped loving this yarn. I didn't stop loving the yarn when the second sock started looking drastically different than the first. I didn't stop loving the yarn when it started to become alarmingly clear that indeed these socks would not match--not even a little bit. The first sock has a smoky stripe that swirls down the leg, the second sock has no such stripe.

In a way, it's good that the toes are done in the pink, because it tricks the eye into thinking the socks match more than they actually do. Still, I will wear them with pride. They're comfy and soft and oh so stretchy. Plus the toes have these cute little cables. YES.

Breeze

Remember that Lorna's Laces sock yarn pr0n from last time? That sock yarn that I already had lined up for the next pair? Well, I got greedy. Surfing the Internet the other day, I noticed that the Knit Happens online store seemed to be having a ridiculous sale on Lorna's Laces. $4 a skein? Really? Anyway, I live and work only a couple of blocks away from the real Knit Happens, so I took myself over there after work last week in hopes of scooping so sweet discounted sock yarn. Sadly, the sale didn't extend to the stuff in the store, but apparently that didn't stop me. I ended up getting some Koigu KPPM, a sock yarn I'd heard much about but never tried. I'm not sure what attracted me about this colorway, since it's not that pretty at first glance, and as I knit it, it's reminding me more and more of a fruit roll up. I think it's fitting, though, that the colors are so tropical, since I'm using it for a pair of Breeze anklets. Toes, hooooo!

In which I'm feeling persnickety

2007-05-31T16:12:00.000-04:00

Why does taking your car in to get serviced always end up costing approx. $1 billion? And coincide with other, spendy times in your life? The remaining duration of which, I shall be dining on naught but ramen noodles and tap water. Bleagh. Anyway...

I have turned into a knitting machine. I think this is because I switched over to knitting continental a month or two ago, and yes, it is faster. Also, I don't know if it's the weather or the pilates or what, but the repetative stress injury that flares up in my right wrist from time to time has not shown its head in quite some time. So, woohoo!

Huggable Hedgehogs

I finished the other two hedgies I was working on. This is a great pattern, but I must say I'm a little tired of it. I'll definitely revisit it, since I told my Pop I'd make him one for his office, but I've got to take a little break, first. They did come out very cutely, though.

The brown one, you remember, is Chocolate Chip. Then of course we've got the brown, pink, and white Neapolitan, and the little green and white baby hedgie Pistachio. Pistachio might be my favorite.

Danica

I've been doing a lot of knitting for others lately, which is a change from my usual selfish knitting tendancies. I had two balls of the Noro Silk Garden I used for my Clapotis wrap in the basket, a scarf my mom greatly admired. While two balls are not enough for another giant Clapotis, it's not out of the realm of possibility that you can coax a nice scarf from them. Since I've seen lovely results when people mix Noro and entrelac, I decided to give Knitty's Danica scarf a shot.
I'm really into this entrelac thing, I'll tell you. It's pretty mindless, with just enough cha-cha to make it interesting. I'm contemplating some kind of fringe or something to finish the edges, but since I've got a whole ball of yarn to go, I don't have to think about that just yet.

Nightime in the Owlry

So, this girl, who I've known for several years now, is graduating from high school this June. This must be a huge relief to her, since I remember being SO ready to escape high school. I didn't care about graduation, or speeches, or my gpa. I would have skipped the ceremony if I could have; I just wanted to be allowed to stop going. I was excited about going to college, but as the time to leave home got closer and closer, fear and anxiety began moving in. I remember, during a freshman orientation meeting one evening, we were asked to bring a "meaningful" object and talk about why it was "meaningful." Most of the girls brought pictures or stuffed animals, (I think one girl brought a photo of a horse). I brought a blanket that I made in either elementary or middle school. I've had it for ages, and somehow it keeps following me around. It might be that it's just a good size, or a good weight, or that it is so familiar after all this time it has become comforting out of habit.

ANYWAY, this lovely kid I know is graduating, and her mom is doing the greatest thing--she's having friends knit up 12x12" squares, that will all be sewn together to make a blanket. A blanket to go with this girl to college. How great is that? I finished my square last night. As you can see, it's called "Nightime in the Owlry," because it's got four of those uber-trendy owl cables in it. Other than that, it's pretty plain vanilla. Knit up in brown and white Peace Fleece, with some weird variagated, glisten-y yarn (the top panel and blue owl) that I think is some kind of synthetic. I can't find the ball band. I'm really pleased with how it came out, and I'm toying with the idea of starting an entire blanket, made up of these squares. Could be pretty sweet....

Lorna's Laces
This is just yarn pr0n. Picked these up at MD Sheep and Wool for $20/2 skeins. Layette colorway.

Socks galore!

2007-05-14T09:29:00.000-04:00

Velcome to zee Socking Hour, with Zelda and Chocolate Chip. Zee first item on our program tonight will be zee...

Hedera Socks from Knitty!

Finished Hedera Socks in Colinette Jitterbug's Jay Colorway

The leg part of these socks is faithful to the pattern, but I had to modify the heel so it wouldn't be so ginormous on my foot. I think this yarn is slightly thicker that the yarn the pattern calls for, but it's wonderfully stretchy and squishy, so you don't hear me complaining. Lucky for me, when I was working these up I just happened to have Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's wonderful Knitting Rules out from the library, which has an amazing "formula" for working socks. Basically, to work the heel, you place half of your leg stitches on hold, and work the back half for the heel, working back and forth in stockinette, slipping the first stitch of every row, until the heel flap is a square. From here, you work your heel short rows to turn, and then pick up the slipped stitches on either side to rejoin to the foot. On every other round you have to decrease one stitch on either side of the heel, until you are back to the number of stitches you cast on for the leg. After that, it's simply a matter of working the foot and the toe as the pattern calls for. Amazing! So clever, and now my socks actually fit my foots!

Moving on, you may remember that I had two balls of Colinette Jitterbug, and after the completion of the Hedera socks, I immediately began a sock with my other ball of Jitterbug. This is an important sock, because it is the first of my own design. I give you, the Big Bamboo Socks!

The leg is a version of the Big Bamboo stitch pattern found in Vogue Stitchionary Vol. I, the heel is worked in the manner detailed in the previos paragraph, and the toe features a little cable to make it extra fancy.

I'm really pleased with the way the pattern and the yarn work together, and I think it's really effective. The sock makes me think of twilight falling on a bamboo grove, which is a very romantic thought to be evoked by a sock. But, there you have it; I am sock crazy. I didn't write anything down for this sock, and I have yet to start the second one. I'm planning on using the finished sock as a guide for the second: Wish me luck with that.

Hedgehogs!

Aside from socks, I'm working on these stuffed, knit hedgehogs, from the Fibertrends Huggable Hedgehogs pattern, which I ordered from Paradise Fibers. I've decided this guy must be named Chocolate Chip, which is clever because it's actually a color classification term for hedgies, too.

The reason his name has to be Chocolate Chip is that I'm working on a ladyfriend for him in brown, pink, and white, whose name will obviously be Neapolitan. Fortuitously, the other day I found this old ball of eyelash yarn a friend gave me ages ago. It's the kind of yarn that you get tired of very early on in your knitting career; bluey-green Lionsbrand fun fur. I think she gave it to me because someone had given it to her, and she had no desire to keep it. When she asked me if I wanted it, I have a sneaking suspicion that I had no idea what I would do with it, but my natural hording instinct kicked in and I said I'd take it. Can't argue with free, right? Anyway, since there's only one ball, it will be perfect to use for a little baby hedge named Pistachio! See? They're all ice-cream names! Get it? GET IT?? The hedgie bodies are being knit up in some wool/mohair Peace Fleece I got at an excellent price at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Spikes are Lionsbrand Fun Fur, and the eyes are plastic animal eyes I got at Joann's Fabrics. These babies knit up fast, and give you that satisfaction that only felted items can.

The hedgehog pattern was only $5, and the site had a $10 minimum, so the obvious answer was to buy some sock yarn while I had my credit card out. I decided to get a skein of Artyarns, since I'd heard good things about it. Their colors don't have fun names, but they are really pretty, and I went for this nice blue/goldy-bronze colorway that looked as though it would make some smashing Ravenclaw themed socks. Imagine my surprise when I received the yarn in the mail, and realized I'd have to rethink. The skein was enough for maybe one sock. Maybe. If you want my opinion, this is a ripoff. Call me old fashioned, or cheap, or both, but I believe that a skein of sock yarn should be enough to make a pair of socks. Especially if it costs the same as other, more robustly yarded sock yarns. Oh well--I'll still use it to make some Ravenclaw socks, I'll just have to find some yarn to work with it. The question is, what color should I get to go with it? It's got to be a solid, certainly, but what color? Hmmmm...

New blog post on Metronomie

2007-05-04T08:08:00.000-04:00

A few friends and I have started a community blog for our newly formed dinner club, Metronomie. My latest post is an original recipe for Ominous Potato Salad, so if you like potato salad, you should check it out.

Pics of socks are coming soon--do not lose heart.

Hedgiesaurus

2007-04-24T18:01:00.000-04:00

I realized it's been quite a while since there have been any pics of Zelda on the blog, which is so not what I am about. This blog was supposed to be a showcase, a shadowbox if you will, for my lovely Zelda. So, without further ado, I give you, ze Zelda.

This is probably the cutest picture of Zelda I've ever taken. She's cozied up in one of my old t-shirts.

Exploring under the couch

When she's on the move, she's difficult to photograph. Everything must be snoozled!

We went outside the other day, but it was too hot! This yogurt container gave her some shade until I took the hint and took her inside.

That's all! Time for hedgies to go back to sleep!

Rest assured a lot of knitting is being knit. The Hedera socks are very close to being done and I'm working my way toward the toe of the second sock. I imagine the next entry will probably be sockly picturesque. Other things on the horizon are a pair of Ravenclaw inspired socks, some knitted hedgehogs, and the ever popular owl cable. I might scrap the idea of a final Harry Potter scarf and do a pair of ginormous socks instead. Hmmmmmm.....

Image Scourge

2007-04-17T07:50:00.000-04:00

I've had these images floating around on my desktop for too long, and it is time to blog them and get them out of my way. This entry might be a little disjointed as a result, but since it is fully illustrated I hope it will hold the attention.

Sockdate

These are the socks I am working on at the moment, and aren't they leeervely? This picture is sort of a lie though, because I had to rip back the heel flap and the sock has reverted to being a lacy tube. What makes it even sadder is that after this picture was taken, I had actually made pretty good progress on the foot before I realized that it looked a little large. Very large, in fact. The issue is, of course, one of guage, and since I didn't bother to do a guage swatch beforehand (it's SOCK yarn, it should be the right size for socks!), I have no one to blame but myself. I don't mind since the yarn is soooo yummy and squishy, and it means I can make the leg a little longer so the tops of the socks don't hit that one particular spot that makes my calf muscle look ginormous. It will also be a good opportunity to figure out how to customize a sock pattern to fit my foot, something I've never had to do before. These are the Hedera socks from Knitty, another pattern from the fabulous Cookie A. The yarn is Colinette Jitterbug in the Jay colorway. I experimented with this yarn a little bit, trying to hit on a pattern that would enhance the GOREgeous colors (and yet, I did not stop once to measure guage--I am a freakin' champion.) Since the ribbing at the top of the sock looked pretty good, I decided to just go ahead and start in on the Hedera lace pattern. While the variagated colors do swallow up the finer details of the lace, it creates a nice texture and gives the colors real dimension. I'm inclined to think this is because the lace pattern creates more highlights and shadows, preventing the colors from looking too flat.

Hedge News

Zelda the hedgehog is doing fine. We're going to the vet on Thursday for a check-up. When I called to make the appointment, the receptionist warned me that in the event Zelda decides to be grumpy or uncooperative, they may have to administer anesthesia. While I firmly believe that Zelda will behave herself and act like a lady, I am a little worried about what will happen if they want to put her to sleep. I'm not sure that I will be down with that, since she is a very tiny animal and it wouldn't take much to give her too much. I guess I'll just tell them I'd rather they didn't, and take her home again. She has a new spiffy Marchioro cage, which is bigger than her old place and much, much easier to clean. Seriously--I cleaned this thing in less than 20 minutes last time.

Daily Jonathan Coulton

Many, many weeks ago, I went to a Jonathan Coulton show. He was so, so dreamy. He sang all my favorite songs, including Re: Your Brains, Mandelbrot Set, and Skullcrusher Mountain. I got a sweet Re: Your Brains t-shirt with a big blood splatter on the front, andAND he signed my copy of The Areas of My Expertise. While the book is not by Coulton himself, he did collaborate with author and all around intriguing person John Hodgman by writing a song about furry old lobsters. Thus, I leave you with this clip from AOTS, in which both men shine like the diamonds they are. Peace!

Blackberry Cozy Design -- Part IV: Finished!

2007-04-10T08:04:00.000-04:00

Finished! And with yarn to spare. I swear, all of my "stash busting" forays are really more like stash nibbling. I could probably make a couple more of these things with nary a trip ye olde yarne shoppe. That is not going to happen, though, unless someone offers to pay me $50/bobble, because they are time consuming and fiddly. Doesn't that sound fun? Well, a pattern for this will be up soon, so you can make one and destroy an eyesight of your very own!

As you can see, I decided to go with the pop-top construction, so while the entire blackberry and holster fits inside the cozy, the blackberry can slide out on its own. There's a beautifully fitted slit on the back, so the holster clip is on the outside of the cozy and is still functionally clippable. I quickly realized that the cozy needed to be clippable, because a truly badass knitter, such as myself, should never be without a ginormous knitted blackberry clipped to her pants. The difference between someone with a blackberry clipped to her pants, and a KNITTED blackberry clipped to her pants, is that one is a badass knitter, while the other is merely an ass.

The leaf is completely ornamental, although I'm beginning to suspect that green Lamb's Pride is magical, since it seems to be evincing amaranthine properties. Incidentally, Amaranthine is your word for the day (it is also my word for today--isn't it cool? Aren't you glad that this is your word for the day?!?). It's an adjective synonymous with never-ending. The stem was originally ornamental as well, but since I discovered it's just the right length to latch onto a couple of bobbles, it's now the closure of the whole business.

And that's about it--as always, click the photos for a better look. Ciao!

Karp, karp!

2007-03-27T22:17:00.000-04:00

Another project finished today! I am on a roll! My pal Priya asked me to design a graphic for her friend's bridal shower, or engagement party, or some sort of festival celebrating the upcoming nuptuals. The shindig is going to have a Japanese flava, so I had to give a shout out to my favorite Japanese fish, the noble koi. Koi, koi, how do I love thee? So beautiful, so fat, so vigorous. I'm pretty proud of this dude, he's a real coy looking koi, if I do say so myself. Seriously though, koi are very hardy fish, and can represent triumph over adversity (I think it's because they swim against the current upstream to spawn or something), so it seemed like a good animal to have at a bridal shower. Originally I was going to decorate him with a Japanese inspired fabric print type design, but I liked the heart petalled blobs so much I decided to keep him as is. If this were a show koi, I think he would be very fancy, and perhaps very valuable.

Props to The Burnished Claw for the suggestion. Micron pen on paper. Text in the upper corner is the date, text in the lower corner is a congratulatory message.

Sock monkey off my back? Heck no!

2007-03-27T18:27:00.000-04:00

The Monkey socks have been finished for a few days now, but I only last night got around to blocking them. They turned out very nicely, and once winter time rolls around again I'm sure I'll be itching to wear them. Since it is at least 80 degrees outside right now, though, the chances of me wearing wool socks anytime soon are pretty slim. Thus, they will slumber, becurled in my sock drawer to dream of frost covered pines and chiminee smoke until the winter months. Good thing I have --cough-- a few newly acquired skeins of sock yarn to bolster my winter sockpile (see what I did there?)

In the last two weeks, I have purchased two beautiful skeins of sock yarn from Springwater, a yarn shop conveniently located approximately five steps from my door. Their general selection of sock yarn is not that amazing, but there is one particular brand they carry that has the most gorgeous coloways eVAR. One of the skeins is called "Bright Charcoal," and is a mix of pale lavender, charcoal gray, olive green, saphire blue, dark plum, and mulberry. It is GORE-geous. The other is the equally enticing "Jay" colorway in all manner of aquamarines, saphires, black, navy blue, spring green, and a few hints of plum. These yarns kill me. I think this is one of those things that if you are a knitter you will understand, and if you're a non-knitter you will thing I am a few sacks short of a full grist order. Such is the price of the forbidden love I have for this Jitterbug sock yarn...a price I will gladly pay.

Blackberry Cozy Design -- Part III

2007-03-23T09:02:00.000-04:00

I've started work on the BB cozy, and it is just as obnoxious to knit as I suspected it might be. That's not to say that it isn't coming out lovely, and I am very pleased with it thus far, but holy heck! After this project, if I ever have to bobble again it will be too soon.

I decided to build the cozy from the bottom up, as you would for a toe-up sock. A few months ago, Knitty ran an excellent article about different styles of toes for toe-up socks, and it was to this I turned. I decided to go with a figure-8 cast on, since A)I had used this cast on previously, for a pair of Baudelaires, and B)It didn't involve a ding-dang crochet hook. I don't begrudge people enjoying crochet. I have even gone so far as to do crocheted edging...for knitted pieces. However, I can't get excited about using a crochet hook, and when you have the option of using a cast on that's as clever and cool as the figure-8...well...why wouldn't you? It's sort of a tricky thing, but the neat little pocket it creates is worth the first, oh, 10 rows of fiddliness. The essential idea of the figure-8 is that you wrap your yarn around two dpns, in a figure-8 motion (over the left-hand needle and up between the needles, over the right-hand-needle and up between the needles, and so on and so forth) until you have the desired amount of loops-cum-stitches, and then, using two more dpns, you knit into those loops and turn them into real stitches. That first row is a HUGE bitch, but it turns out as neat and sweet as a little pie.

After casting on the bottom of the cozy, I worked a few rows in stockinette, and then a few rows in moss, before beginning the bobbling. I decided to only bobble the front of the cozy because really, that is the only part that will be seen, and bobbling on the back would make it more difficult to see where the opening needs to be for the holster clip. Also, if I had to bobble the entire thing front and back, I would probably go crazy. Bone-crazy.

The bobbles start small and numerous on the bottom, and progressively get larger and more spaced out towards the top, so as more of the cozy gets worked, it gets less fiddly. I predict the body of the cozy will be done sometime next week, but there are still a few issues to be ironed out.

The cozy is going to fit up underneath the clip on the holster, and also is going to have a flip top, for easy access. This means that there will have to be an opening on the back for the top of the holster clip to fit through, as well as a large opening in the front.
The top needs to be kind of rounded, which means a succession of decreases to make a nice, smooth curve.
Leaf and stem for the top, still not a big deal, but I thought I'd include them so there could be a third item on the list.

Stay tuned...

A Short, Quick Rant

2007-03-17T09:13:00.000-04:00

I'm not usually a ranter, but this particular thing has been bugging me for quite some time, and even though I'm not the first person to rant about it, and I certainly won't be the last, I figure that there are so many people out there who seem to think it's acceptable, that getting another voice out there against it is the very least I can do. This rant is about a word I hate, and it's a word that people seem to think is pretty okay--even people who promote themselves as pro-woman. I'm talking about the word SLUT.

The reason I hate this word is that it brings everyone involved back to bad old days, when a woman was judged strictly on the status of her "virtue." Virtue meaning virginity. I hate how people who profess to be in the feminist corner will use it to describe girls and women they think don't measure up to their ideas of what a modern, forward-thinking, VIRTUOUS woman ought to be. This doesn't mean that I'm a free-lovin' hippy, and it doesn't mean I think it's okay for ANYONE to put themself in a potentially harmful sexual situation. But to call a woman a slut, simply because YOU think that she is not living up to some imaginary ideal is just plain WRONG. It is wrong becuase it betrays the speaker as a subscriber to the idea that even still, a woman is really only as good as the negative number of notches on her bedpost. Nevermind that we don't call sex-loving men anything that nasty--player and playboy even have, well, playful connotations. Words like manslut and mimbo COME FROM slut and bimbo, because the worst thing that anyone could come up with to label a man as sexually voracious had to equate with the same "fault" in a woman. This just kills me. As a result, anyone out there who uses the word slut will no longer be take seriously by me. Ever. ESPECIALLY if it's couched in with supposedly "feminist" ideas. Sorry--you're ridiculous.

Blackberry Cozy Design -- Part II

2007-03-16T08:16:00.000-04:00

After all the showboating before the match, I was expecting a little competition, a little fanservice from the contenders. Sadly, it was all talk, and the match was a total shutout. Observe these swatches and judge for yourself.

The Rowan Calmer did its very best, I'm sure, but it did not accomplish what I needed it to. While this is a very pretty swatch, and I especially like how the smaller bobbles look all lined up like that, it really does not look much like a blackberry. Case closed.

I hope you agree that the Gems Opal swatch is a total K.O. This looks so good it almost makes up for the fact that making it was a total pain in the ass. I have nothing against tiny yarn or tiny needles (hence the love of sock-making); it's the bobbles themselves that make it a chore. Having to short-row five stitches, and then knit them all together on my slippery metal needles all across the row, over and over, is a little on the grueling side. Also, the stitches in between the bobbles? Yeah, that's seed stitch, baby. Like I said before, sucker for punishment.

Maybe I need to purchase some bamboo #3s...hmmm. I do own several pairs of bamboo dpns, but for the lower sizes I really only have a set of bamboo #2s, and eventually I want to replace my metal #3,4 and 5s with wood or bamboo, because aside from the metal ones being cold and slippery, the sound they made when you slide them out of a plastic case is bone-chilling. It's akin to the sound of a fork scraping against a plate, or a fingernail on a chalkboard-- it's that kind of bad.

So, the next step is to take some measurements of my blackberry and figure out the guage of this swatch, and from those two measurements I should be able to arrive at the number of stitches I need to cast on. I've already decided I'm going to work this up in the round, since that will make for a stronger cozy, and eliminates the need for seaming. At this point, I also need to make a few decisions about the structure of the piece.

Do I want it to be a straight up and down knitted case, with an opening at the top, or a more complicated design with a top that flips off?
Should the case fit only the blackberry, or the blackberry and the holster. The holster will make it more complicated, but it would allow me to clip the blackberry, in the cozy, to things. This would show off the cozy more and would allow me to get to the BB more quickly.
Should the cozy be lined? Again, this would make it stronger, but if I decide to make a holster-accomidating cozy, it won't need to be all that strong.

Additionally, I need to work up a design schema for the pattern of the bobbles on the front of the piece. This will be effected, and in return will effect, the number of stitches that will eventually be cast on for the piece. Since I already have a pattern for a small leaf, the finishing touches of a leaf and stem need marginal thought (the stem can easily be knit up as i-cord). There are still plenty of things to think about here, so I'm going to take some time to give it a good mull in the old skull-chest. To be continued...