AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

racing against time

Thanks for the comments about the race.  The Corporate Challenge is a fun though extremely packed short race.  Normally in Boston the race is 3.5 miles, though this year because of construction near Kenmore it was shortened to 3 miles. 

This is usually a really slow race for me.  It is really hard to dodge all of the other people, runners and walkers both, when you want to increase your pace even just a little.  I'm getting better at it, and hopefully next year I'll have mastered that special sideways step that will allow me to maintain something approximating my normal race pace. 

Of course, the running culminated with a couple of other athletic endeavors, leaving me pretty tapped for the moment (my body is starting to tell me things again) and lunches like today's banana and cereal aren't likely to make things better.  I'm crossing my fingers that I'll survive till I get home to make something a bit more robust for dinner.  I'm hoping for stir fry veggies and tofu over soba noodles.  Shouldn't take too long!

Saturday I watched Wall-E after a round of stupid running tricks.  I met a friend and ran with my backpack on.  Even an extra 8 pounds made a huge difference in how well I felt like I was moving!  But all wasn't lost.  I did get to Windsor Button to buy the ribbon for my Frog Camisole.  I didn't squeak the finishing in before the end of June, but I have all of the pieces and should hopefully get that done over the long weekend!

A long weekend that couldn't happen too soon.

short and sweet

I finished the knitting on the Frog Camisole yesterday, though I haven't woven in the ends or blocked it.  I did yank it over my head (in the cafeteria at work) to make sure it wasn't too far off the size mark.  I'm going to use ribbon instead of icord for the straps, or maybe the rattail.  I just don't have enough of the Noro sock yarn to also do straps with it. 

So, I'm back to working on Vestish and running.  Tonight is the Corporate Challenge.  I'll probably end up walking it (because, believe me, running without a sports bra is seriously uncomfortable and running with a wet sports bra really isn't any better).  But because of construction the race has been shortened, so even with the crowds I should be able to pull a decent time out of it.  Power Walking!

I wish good sports bras came in six packs like beer (or a case of 12 like soda).  Maybe then I wouldn't feel like I needed twice weekly laundry episodes just to keep up with the dirty gym clothes (small loads granted, because sports bras aren't big unless you are gifted with the gargantu-boob).

Heh.  Gargantu-boob.  Because I am 12 inside.

not as good as the original

Yesterday, I made the Matcha Cookies that Mariko posted about last month.  I went to Kotobukiya for matcha, and kind of had a bust moment.  Plenty of green tea but all of the matcha was instant.  Not the pure matcha I really needed for the recipe.  I bought some anyway (though I think I might be willing to fork over the more $20 for pure matcha during ice cream season), and made the cookies.

As I expected, my cookies were pale, lightly flavored imitations of her rich green cookies.  But they're still tasty, just not GREEN TEA flavored.  more like green tea...

15 tons of knitting, but none of it is here

I just got home a little while ago (probably about an hour, surfing the web and a long shower take time) from running with one of my friends.  He's a better runner than me, but I'm apparently better than I thought.

We ran this route.  Over 10 miles, under 2 hours.  I'm completely thrilled to pieces.  We were using the Minuteman Bike Path, which is a little hard to map out.  I used the gaps between the trees to mark the path.

Of course, running that much (and without hydration... I'm terrible at that) meant that when I got back to Davis I was gritty with salt from all of the evaporated sweat.  I so earned that cupcake I bought at Kickass Cupcakes (vegan ginger peach bellini... very tasty without being too dry). And all of the water and unsweetened iced tea I could drink.  I stopped at Spark, but they didn't have the size and color seed beads I was looking to use in Hanami.  I want to know if anyone has done a full beaded version...  I just want extra sparkle in this stole.

Of course, now I'm clean and hydrated, and I'm going to read and knit and lie in bed as much like a slug as I can for an hour or so (unless I nap... I'm super tired!).

The view outside my window

 A few days off and the world just throws you for a loop. 

Last week I bought yarn for my birthday (and gave away the lime green sock yarn to Miss G!).  Of course, buying yarn for my birthday was only supposed to be the yarn for the Butterscotch Cardigan (which I will probably start in a week or two) and the yarn to finish Vestish, but I decided that the Frog Camisole would never be finished if I continued with the cotton.  So, a frogging and a shopping I went.  Currently, I'm knitting it with a combination of the Kureyon sock yarn (thick and thin sock yarn is very odd) and leftover Trekking (I had 40 grams leftover from a pair of socks!).  The original gauge for the pattern produces a garment about 29 inches around (just mathing here) for a 35 inch bust.  I figure my rejiggered numbers should work just fine for my measurements.

But this isn't really about knitting.  Lately, my hubby and I have been taking pictures outside our windows.  We live slightly below grade, so many a morning is punctuated with cries of "Bunny!"  We have a regular bunny visitor and slightly less regular kitties who talk to our cat through the window.  We also have plants.  I want to do Norma's Garden-a-long, but I don't really have a place with light.  Occasionally I will say rules be damned and toss something out the window (usually it is trying to grow anyway).  And because photographing my knitting is much harder than taking random pictures out the window...

Our regular visitor taunts Saru-chan.  She is by nearly every day (or at least every morning I'm looking out the window).  Thankfully our cat is not like some I've heard of - she doesn't stare out the window with her mouth partway open and little bits of drool.  Thank goodness.  I am not sure I would be photographing her then.

The bunny was all over the area around our condo that morning, with my hubby and I looking at her from roon to room. 

We do have some things growing outside our windows... I'd need an expert to tell me, but I think this is an onion. If so, then I put it outside a number of months ago when I decided that three inches of green shoots meant it wasn't food anymore.  Can anyone tell me?

Of course, I am having a few issues with my image insertion with the newer Typepad interface (I'm just not used to it being so slow), so this image is currently stuck at its tiny size.  The top of the plant is a small bulb-like area covered with a large number of small white flowers.  If the powers of knitbloggers aren't enough, then I'll start with wikipedia and the sites like Burpee for the rest of my info!

red soxx...

I'm home really late (the kitty was fed before we left and twice more since we've gotten home).

The Red Sox beat the Orioles.  Much knitting was had, and I was reminded forcibly by the people sitting in front of us why drinking responsibly doesn't mean buying at least one beer an inning (until inning 7, when you buy 2 because they're going to stop selling).  Belligerent drunk people are not my idea of a good time had by all.

I worked on Abotanicity until about the 7 inning stretch.  I feel like the yoke increases are taking forever (last I counted I had 67 stitches between the first 2 stitch markers... I need to get to 105... *zzzz*).  I know it is going to be great once I get to put the sleeve stitches on the holder and better still when I get to the lace.  The getting there, however, is a lot slower than I want it to be.

is it finished if it isn't on the blog

Life has just been crazy busy at work and in the knitting trenches. 

A little recap:  Last week (it feels like forever since I posted even though it was only a couple of days) I sent in an order for the yarn I needed for Vestish.  Apparently it is not going to be 100% from the stash after all.  The yarn arrived last night, so I can get back to work on that momentarily.  My stashalong goals were to only buy yarn when I finished two projects or to finish a project on the needles.  I guess the yarn for Vestish falls under category B.

Of course, I had to order yarn for this week (it's part of finishing 2 things after all!), so I have yarn on order for the Butterscotch Cardigan and to try the Frog Camisole with a different yarn.  The Vintage Cotton is just very hard on my hands.

While I was waiting for yarn to come in, I kind of went crazy starting things.  I am about halfway through the yoke increases for Abotanicity and am nearly done the first sleeve in my GoLion version of the One Skein Wonder.  No pictures of those, but there are pictures because I finally gave my latest socks their blocking bath and dried them (I was going to show them on the sock blockers that I finally succumbed to, but they are acryllic and don't do so well with the flash photography). 

So, finally finished:

Pattern: Monkey socks (again)

Yarn: Umm, I believe this was some handpainted Opal yarn I bought in mumble-mumble from Woolcott before I had ever made a pair of socks.  I believe that I bought the yarn in 2004 (it was definitely before I got married)...

I love the yarn.  It is bright enough to feel extra special in my grey and black corporate uniform, but not so bright that I feel like my feet have taken center stage.  This picture doesn't do justice to either the yarn or the pattern. 

I didn't do any modifications on the pattern.  Probably because I enjoy doing the twisted rib, which is one of the reasons I loved making the Ripple and Weave socks last year.  I really need to make Potamus at some point, because it has all of the design elements I seem to gravitate towards in my fancier socks.

So, I do have another finished object to show off, but I haven't managed to take any pictures yet.  It's been done for at least two weeks (including blocking), but it is hard to find the time to take a nice proper picture.

Head first in the startitis vat

Sploosh!

This week has been an adventure in knitting.  I have started three things (and haven't gotten them all into Ravelry yet):  Vestish (where I am almost done the back), a One Skein Wonder (which is apparently my Golion knitting), and Abotanicity (which I started about two days ago).

I have something blocking, so it isn't completely just starting things, but I've been too lazy to get around to photographing them.  Suffice to say that one of the things is socks and that the other is not.  Maybe I'll do the photography this weekend and get in some quality blogging time.

Of course, I've knit a lot of stuff and most of it has approached completion.  I'm up to four finished objects (and I only posted about two of them), which is well within my requirements to buy more yarn!  So for my special day next week (Thursday!), I'm ordering yarn from Loopy Ewe for the Butterscotch Cardigan.  Though I might be bad and throw in a little something else while I'm at it.  There is always more sock yarn afterall...

Want some yarn?

It's time for another giveaway!

This is a special week for me, so I'm going to give away this skein of yarn to a random person on Thursday, June 12th.  Which skein of yarn?

This one:

Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in a really brilliant lime color.  This skein should be enough for a pair of socks (provided that they aren't too tall or for really large feet). 

I'll keep this short, because I'm going to go out and enjoy this week to the fullest!
[Just leave a comment if you want the yarn...]

++ and --

First, the - -

The Penguins lost.  It was really close (it looked like it was almost into the net in the last 0.5 seconds).  I really wanted them to win, but my Prinny didn't do as hot a job with the cheering as Custard.  Maybe next season?

And the ++

I ordered two skeins of yarn for Vestish after I realized that I had only bought one skein of this yarn initially (one skein each of three colors).  I figured it out by weighing the entire project (including needles) on my kitchen scale and coming up under 100 grams.  Explains a lot.  I sent an email to Margaret at Mostly Merino yesterday and gave her the rest of my info once I confirmed that she had the yarn in stock.  It should be on its way tomorrow, and hopefully on my needles by Monday depending on the post.

In the meantime, I decided to start with some random yarn I bought at least two years ago another One Skein Wonder. (It's silk yarn I bought from Kerry with the eye to making the Lace Corset.  When I got it I decided it was too loosely and unevenly spun for that project, so it has just been sitting around waiting for a project where the beautiful colors will make up for the flaws in the yarn itself.  Not quite a one sitting project, because I want to make sure I use all of the yarn, so I'm going to be doing something special for the edging and the sleeves most likely.