Helen in Creative Knitting

Congrats to Helen for the capelet pattern she had published in the most recent Creative Knitting! I picked up a copy last Friday. I was most amused to read the article about “creative vandalism,” which cited the influence of the American group “Knitta” and interviewed an anonymous artist from a Sydney group. The Sydney artist sounded verrrry familiar as s/he described putting toys in random spots around town. Hmm, I wonder who that could be? *COUGH, COUGH*

STRESS!

STRESS!

  • I called Mom this morning to find out that she’s in the process of buying their tickets to Sydney. She, Joe, and my little brother Joey get here on Good Friday. That’s a week from this Friday! We have to clean the whole house, do the laundry, get groceries, work out where everybody’s sleeping, plan activities, ACK! (But I’m excited. This is the first time anyone from my immediate family’s visited me Down Under.)
  • Dr. Amy Jones has developed a bald patch under her right arm. I’m a little freaked out about it. She could have ringworm; she could just be stressed; she could just be stupid and overgrooming. Or maybe Nurgul put a curse on her. At any rate, she’s got an appointment at the V-E-T for Sunday.
  • I’ve had a crappy couple of weeks now, diet-wise. I do all right through the week but lately I’ve been falling apart on the weekends. Plus the weather has just started to feel like Fall, and with the end of Daylight Savings I’m finding it (as expected) reeeeally difficult to exercise after work. I don’t expect to have a loss tonight.

And yet I’m strangely optimistic about everything. I think it’s because it’s so sunny outside. Is there anything prettier than a bright Fall morning?

The Final Countdown

The Final Countdown. I’m almost disappointed I’m missing Indiana’s historic Daylight-Savings switch. I wonder if the old people are freaking out? I can just imagine them lining up at the IGA right now for jugs of water and batteries. (I worked at a podunk grocery store for four years. Every time anything remotely problematic was predicted, old people would turn up to stockpile like it was World War III.) Ooh, I hope Moire posts some sort of recap!

Happy anniversary to the cute boy from my office who I’d been crushing on for weeks and who kissed me on the dance floor at the dodgiest club in London… and who six years later kisses me when I wake up in the morning and I’m cross and my hair’s all crazy and I have kitten-breath. I never thought I’d find someone who’d accept all my faults, play along with all my hare-brained schemes, and inspire me so much to become a better person. Thank you, Snookums.

Happy anniversary!

Rogue Quandary

I was just finishing off the back shoulders of Rogue tonight when I came to the short-rows. Now I’ve done short-rows before on socks, so I started “wrapping and turning” without hesitation. Then I came to a row instructing me to knit across all stitches, “picking up and hiding wraps.” Huh? That’s puzzling. I’ve never seen the expression “hiding wraps” before. I’ve had patterns tell me to pick them up and knit them together with the wrapped stitch, but I wasn’t sure if that’s what the designer was indicating here. So I went searching. Thank goodness that Google indexes PDFs! This page from Interweave’s Knitting Glossary explains it well. In fact, I also learned that my “wrapping and turning” was completely wrong! I’ve been taking the wool to the opposite side, slipping, putting the wool back, and then slipping the stitch back – but I should’ve been slipping, taking the wool to the opposite side, slipping, and then wrapping. I wonder what sort of a difference this is going to make to my short-row heeled socks in the future. Anyway, the back is officially done. I still think this thing looks small. I’ve stretched it around myself and it’s going to be a snug fit! As if I needed more weightloss inspiration.