KarenJoSeattle

Friday Photo and FO

Today started and ended cool and gray on the island where I started and ended it. In between while I ran around Seattle for errands and Pilates lessons it turned that not-quite-bright, not-quite-warm, a little breezy Spring weather we sometimes get.

And as is often true here in these transitional seasons, someone ten or twenty miles away probably had a different day.

While riding ferries and buses and then during taped episodes of Jane Austin and Numb3rs, I started and finished a washcloth. Except for blocking and despite ripping out the first third to go down three needle sizes from the manufacturer's suggestion rather than only one, I finished it in one day. No wonder people get hooked on these.

Though I was having second thoughts about the wonders of a one day project as the end of my skein got too close for comfort during my last few rows. I almost had to decide between ripping it all and reknitting with a few fewer stitches from somewhere or tomorrow buying another skein for a couple rows.

Or the next time I saw Ryan saying "Washcloth? You didn't get my washcloth?"

I think I'll do another one tomorrow. I did buy two skeins of yarn and mailing off one seems a bit of a waste.

Priorities

So, I'm sorting out stuff in our in-escrow island place to get put into storage or get moved to our place in Seattle or to the place we bought in California for my mom once this place closes.

Besides yarn, I have other things I own much more of than I need - exercise videos for example.

I started working out to videos in 1999, a couple of years before I started knitting again. That's another world that non-practitioners often don't get. Exercise videos get discussed and traded on specialty forums. Over 1,000 different titles can be bought new right now and many more out of print ones show up in the second-hand markets. Some are real quite good.

I don't own 1,000 videos - quite. I do have enough in this house that when I went to sort out the ones I wanted to hang on to, I made a large pile of ones I couldn't remember well enough to make the decision. The plan was to watch them while I knit so I could remember if they rated keeping.

As I sat there that evening with my knitting and a pretty good ballet tape running, I glanced at some baskets of things on the floor I still needed to sort. On the top of a stack of magazines sat the two Lucy Neatby DVDs I'd bought but not yet watched.

The ballet tape finished playing and I set it on the keep shelf. Then I went back through the pile of undecided videos, pulled out a half dozen I likely would want, and filled a grocery bag for the local library's sale with the rest.

I still have dozens of exercise videos I use and will keep. Right now my knitting time is limited as I sort through thirteen years of accumulation in between trips to California to finish settling my mother. Much as I like my workouts, if I have a choice, I'd rather spend that time with Lucy.

I have my priorities.

Knit Surfing

No wonder I so often get behind on reading blogs. I keep finding new ones to add to my Bloglines list. Lately I've explored many of the links from one blog to the next and on to the next. I've ended up in some interesting places.

I try to stay with just knitting-themed blogs, but even that seems to get away from me sometimes. This week I spent some time reading back through a blog called Posie Gets Cozy who's author knits very little. Actually, today when she planned to start a cabled sweater and said it would be a first sweater, the post made for the first knitting content I've seen there.

Alicia does craft, in fact has just finished the final draft of a crafting book, but she does more sewing-based stuff. I don't sew much or well. She cooks a lot, too, when not up against deadlines. Many of her meals or food ideas wouldn't work for me due to my milk allergy and habit of not eating red meat.

So why am I there? Well, there's a feeling at crafting/cooking/gardening/making things and your life blogs that feels familiar and comfotable to me. And I like her writing style, though she gets more 'mushy' about things than I do - things like Clover the corgi puppy. The site needs a Cute Overload warning label right now.

And then I had to go back to find out what happened to Audrey, the recently previous corgi. And I got mushy. So, now I'm stuck on yet another blog and my sweater is not done. Blog reading slows my knitting way down.

At the other end of the blog spectrum, TECHknitting has resumed posting. Yes, I found an entire blog of knitting geek heaven - nothing but knitting techniques. A blog of well-written and illustrated posts on techniques.

The most recent post (September 28, 2007 - the posts don't have a permalink) covered a new method for left-leaning decreases that better matches a partnered right-leaning decrease. The one before (September 24, 2007) explained why the left-leaning decrease turns out so wonky as usually done.

I tried this new decrease on my sweater yesterday. How could I resist something called 'Sip Yank Twist Knit.' That sounds so much like making a left-leaning decrease feels when I do one.

What she's done is to take up the slack that gets inot the top stitch and transfer it to the stitch that will end up hidden on the back of the decrease. Then she twists that stitch to keep it there.

The top photo shows my first execution of this technique. My previous over-sized SSK stitch shows in the second, I hope.

Cool, huh?

Oh, and if you really want to challenge your mind, That Laurie's guest posts during the Yarn Harlot's push to a book deadline will do it. Laurie discusses various facets of top-down yoked sweaters, including some to use a limited amount of hand-spun yarn in the yoke. Unfortunately, That Laurie doesn't have her own blog.

Or fortunately - I do not need another blog to read.

 

The Cats and I Feel Cranky

It's one AM and I just woke up after falling asleep sitting here catching up on my blog reading. I'm not caught up.

I finished knitting the eyelet ridge stitch shoulder shawl. Actually, I finished Sunday night, but I haven't blocked it yet. I haven't worked on either of the other two shawls that I wanted to finish this week.

I did no knitting yesterday. I aslo didn't post on this blog. I did finally get to the vet to buy more of the special dry food my allergic cats can eat. They won't tolerate more than two days without both wet and dry food. Yesterday made for day three and cranky cats.

Today I knit four rows on the body of my cardigan. They are longish rows, as the body is one piece at this point in my top-down sweater, but that's still less than a TV show of stockinette on US7s.

I didn't sew in the ends on my Afghans for Afghans hat, though I've had it out to do so all day. I have only four ends to sew. Otherwise it's been finished for a week.

I just checked Ravelry and the stats show only 514 people ahead of me, which means I'm likely to get my invite tomorrow or the next day at the rate they're moving the last week. I've done none of the photographs I thought I still had a couple of months to work on. Nor have I figured out Flickr.

I got my invitiation to another site two days ago and finally got there today. I did leave a comment.

I'm so behind on my life right now. But, hey, I got in a workout for the first time in like two months, maybe three. And I did some writing I didn't expect to get to until Thursday.

I didn't expect to get to the writing because I needed to work on this knitting today. Which I didn't.

But at least now I'm wide awake to block the shawl. Maybe.

If I don't get more sleep tonight than blocking would leave time for, I'll feel like a wreck tomorrow and I have a full day. The full day includes knitting circle, but I'm not to the point I need to reach on my sweater for circle to benefit me, so may need to skip this week. That means I'd skip seeing people I only see there.

None of this results in blog photos -- or world peace. Writing it took an hour of pecking while I knit two more rows on my cardigan. And while I decided to go to bed now, skip circle tomorrow to block and knit, and to take a bus to my cross-town meeting so I can knit rather than fight late rush hour traffic.

But not to knit on the shawls on the bus as those both involve beads. Even in a good week I don't knit with beads on a bus during rush hour.