Frequent Citations

Admiring Azaleas And Winnings

We were supposed to walk through the Park this morning to admire the azaleas and rhododendrons.  TFL didn't get the memo about waking me up in time.  I'll get up early, but I won't necessarily wake up early all on my own.  So it was 20 minutes past leave-for-the-Park time when he woke me.

So we skipped the Park and got on with the rest of our itinerary for the day:  run down to the bike shop to swap a part, stop in a yarn shop for customer appreciation day, and head out of town for a ride.  I signed up for a raffle as soon as I walked in the store, and 5 minutes later they held the raffle, and I won one of the prizes!  I was a little dubious when I heard "rainbow scarf," but lo:

Aren't they lovely?  They're actually two skeins wound together, one the greenish boucle, and the other the cream wool.  It turns out the "rainbow" was a reference to the fact that you could get the boucle in all the different colors and make that many different scarves... or, you know, you could just stick with the one color, quite pretty on its own, thank you.

And I got a goodie bag!

I have no idea what I'll use a hot-pink zipper for, or a scrap of cute-ish fabric, or the little batches of yarn.  Although, actually, the maize-colored one in the middle is just the right shade for a nice elegant M on a dark blue sweater.  That might happen at some point.  That's a nice little canvas bag behind everything, and that's always handy.

I managed to stuff everything in a saddle bag and we were off, riding up the river valley.  It was a spectacular afternoon and we found some great new roads and a few charming towns and got back into the city just as the weather was turning foul.  Perfect timing.  We even managed to admire some azaleas -- and wisteria and lilacs -- while we were riding.

I may now have my winnings draped around my neck, getting ready to wind them into balls so I start knitting.  Work?  Well, there's always tomorrow.

Moping

I'm trying not to mope around, but I think I am a little.  I think it's because I'm so tired I just can't refocus.

In other news, I went to a yarn shop briefly on Saturday (when I should have been working on the 25-page chart I finished today) and successfully limited myself to one skein of back-up yarn for this project:

and new straight needles for this project:

which is in a lovely shade of lavender.

My Little Lamb

I finished this sweater for GirlChild, and TFL eventually managed to get it in the mail (what, you thought I was going to knit it AND mail it? who are we kidding?), and she just got it!

Apologies for the crappy picture.

I modeled it for TFL before packing it up, and he promptly said "She'll look like a woolly lamb."  But a really cute one, I guess.  What looks white in the picture is closer to a rich cream.  What you can't see is that the green is the World's Softest Yarn that's not actually cashmere -- Misti Alpaca.  Sigh.  It's my recommendation for the first yarn to use if you're trying to get someone addicted to knitting.  Quick to knit up and feels absolutely divine.

In other news:  today I billed over 13 hours and, on top of that, spent two hours filling in financial aid forms and buying a train ticket to DC for the weekend.  In other words, I earned myself a blistering headache but I'm really looking forward to a fun weekend (assuming I survive the week).

Fearless Leader

Now has a warm and toasty neck.

Or Dogness does:

Fingerless Gloves

One down, one to go.

Fingerless gloves are fun.  They provide endless scope for pattern and yarn experimentation, and they're quick to knit so good for instant gratification.  Plus, GirlChild actually wears them.

I'm knitting because everything else I have to do right now (hello, work and taxes) is not fun.

Flurries And Fevers

We had another little snow flurry here.  It looked like about a foot of snow was sitting along the Park wall, and street corners are fairly disastrous.  I made it into work, though, for a while, where I was not stunningly productive but did cross a few things off my list.  I left early and introduced a friend from work to the evils joys of knitting -- we stopped at a local yarn store and got her started with needles and thick alpaca and the beginnings of a beautiful scarf -- and then I headed home. 

I swear, from the time I left work to the time I got home I developed a full-blown fever/cold/sore throat.  Or maybe it's pneumonia, or the Plague.  But I'm guessing it's a bad cold, because that always feels worse than anything else except maybe actual death.  I can feel it swooping into my lungs even as I type.

I've made tea, I've wrapped myself in layers of cashmere, and now I have to log back into work to finish some stuff up which I am hoping I can do while somewhat befuddled with what really feels like one of my extremely rare fevers.  But after that my plans for the weekend are simple:  knit, sleep off this misery, and watch the Olympics.  Not necessarily in that order, but possibly all at once.

Fingers Flying

I appear to be having one of my periodic Knitting Fits.  (If you are not thrilled by all things woolly, dear reader, you might want to skip this post.  What I don't know won't hurt me.)  I pulled out the Calculus sweater to see where I am on it, and figured out the precise row I was on (yes, I stopped mid-sleeve . . . years ago).  I still haven't quite figured out where to pick up the chart, but I'm pretty confident I will, maybe tomorrow.  That's something that needs to be done when I'm really on top of my game, and tonight I'm a little more mindless than that. 

So I pulled out a couple of small balls of a nice, smooth, chocolate-colored wool and some vintage double-pointed needles and started a pair of fingerless mittens.  I've made this pattern once before, for my mother, and this time around I think I'll make them for GirlChild.  They're a nice quick project but have some lacy details to keep them fun.

Oh, you want to know why it's called the Calculus sweater?  (Let's pretend you do, because that's what I feel like writing about.)  I started this sweater when I was a brand-new knitter.  I don't know if I'd even finished a single project when I picked out the pattern (Vogue Knitting Winter 99/00 shown on p. 83), and it's for experienced knitters.  Meaning, it's complicated.  It's got itty-bitty cables all over it in a complex pattern.  I started undergrad a few months after I bought all the yarn, and by then I think I had knitted maybe the back, or part of it, and it was turning out beautifully.  I will say that I had gone to the yarn store with a friend who was a very experienced knitter and she helped me pick out a yarn that shows the cables perfectly.  Anyway, I discovered that in some classes I did better if I took my knitting along, and so I started working on this sweater again in Calculus class.  And I just tore along, in both math and knitting.  I got the back, front, and nearly all of one sleeve done, and a minor in mathematics. 

Then, I don't know why, I put the sweater away for years.  I'd always done other little projects here and there along with the Calculus sweater, but once I hit law school I did almost no knitting at all.  I'd think about the Calculus sweater periodically, shudder at the thought of trying to figure out where I was in the pattern and/or just starting the whole sleeve over, and decide to think about it again some other day.  But when we moved out here I made sure that every bit of that yarn and the (very tattered) pattern were packed in the precious few boxes of yarn I kept. 

Let's not think about the fact that it might be another ten years before I finish this sweater.  Let's just hope that while this Knitting Fit lasts, I actually get somewhere with it.

Free Time

The matter that was taking up 90 to 150 percent of my time is now, so far as I am concerned, over, done, finito.  It's all over but the (judge's) shouting.  I knew this would happen, I just wasn't sure exactly when, and I'd dropped a few appropriate hints in a few select ears to the effect that I would soon be free to work on a new matter.

But this past week I billed . . . not much.  Monday was a holiday, of course, and I took today off, and in between I worked but got out early each day.

How surreal!  I'm pretty sure it's already over.  In fact, I'm going to have to work a little this weekend on an emergency matter.  

Today, however, I mostly listened to Olympic Curling and pieced together a sweater that had been sitting in a bag for two years.  I can now tell you a lot about curling -- any sport normally done while drinking beer is one I feel deserves far more national prominence -- and I have a finished sweater to show for it, ends woven in and everything.

Hurrah!  Picture some time next week, perhaps.

Frogging And Finishing

When you unravel knitting, it's called frogging.  I don't know why.

TFL and I had a great three-day weekend.  I didn't work at all, which was fantastic.  We got a bunch of stuff done around the apartment, and did some erranding, and while out running aforesaid errands happened to wander into a yarn shop, where I signed up for an advanced class on finishing.  That was my Valentine's day present, and I was very excited about it.  Even TFL got sucked in by the yarn and picked out some beautiful alpaca for a scarf.

Then he picked out a pattern on a swatch I had done years ago and it took me an hour to figure out what stitch it was.  (Woven, in case you were wondering.  It makes a lovely flat surface on the front and a fun diagonal knobby pattern on the back.)

We got takeout from my favorite restaurant, and he brought back a bag of scrumptious chocolate macaroons.  Yummmm.

And we even went to see Avatar.  Monday, midafternoon, and the theater was packed.  Here's my insightful, in-depth review:  the plot is your basic cowboys and Indians, the special effects are phenomenal but not something I'd want in every movie, and it was generally good fun.

In between all that we've been watching the Olympics, which I absolutely love.  The schmaltzy stories, not so much, but I could watch the sports all day and all night.  There were only two parts of the opening ceremonies I liked, though:  the Greeks walking in first (we have continually pondered what the ancient Greeks would have made of something like snowboarding -- I think they would have loved it), and k.d. lang's rendition of "Hallelujah," which was so gorgeous I promptly ordered the cd.

Oh, and tonight I went to the finishing class, and you will all be relieved to know I got an A.  Heh.