AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Strange library work (and other things)

I get married in 4 days (including today). I have created my programs, the last page of placecards, and another completely unrelated set of placecards.

In the week I am gone for work they are holding a summit at work. It is when managers in the department from all over the country get together and discuss different areas like standardization and best practices and benchmarking and all the different buzzwords. They get to go out to a fancy restaurant one night and sort of do a meet and greet. This year they wanted placecards for the restaurant. No biggie.

I love this job, because once a year I get to go back to my graphic design roots. I get to work in Illustrator to create weird dohickies and Photoshop to color change other weird dohickies. It's great fun and makes me wonder why I am not doing this all the time.

(Note that the wedding is 4 days away and I have one shawl to finish and 4 to block. I think it is time for me to block one tonight after the room is clean enough to put things down on the floor again.)

Other than knitting

The wedding is next Friday. April Fool's Day, which is horribly appropriate, and at least something that we will never forget.

As the day fast approaches, I have been working on centerpieces, placecards, and programs. Not very exciting normally, but it is a chance for me to use my paltry skills in graphic design.

For the centerpieces we are filling glass bowls with water and using floating candles, flower petals, and wax roses (which were supposed to be floating candles, but my skills were not really up to this at the time).

The flowers, with all the colors, float nicely in the bowl:

These are made by taking wax and melting it in a pouring pitcher (I got that because it just seemed less messy and it came with other tools). When all the wax is melted, I add the coloring agents. I thought to be thrifty the first time and added food coloring, which I didn't think would work but had to try. Low and behold, it didn't work. So, I got more colorants from Michaels and now have enough wax and colorants to make easily a couple dozen candles. Very exciting.

I have a rose-shaped mold, which is supposed to be for both candles and soaps, but as you have to put the wick in upside down... well, suffice to say, it will be better for soaps. When the wax is 180 degrees (using a candy thermometer and after it broke just guestimating), I do the first pour into the molds. The mold I used is pretty good and didn't require any release agent to be sprayed into the mold first. After a half hour (I set the timer for 25 minutes, so I can start remelting the wax early), it is time for the second pour. I remelt the wax and this time it is supposed to get up to 190 degrees. I believe this is so the new wax can properly adhere to the already cooled wax. As I didn't manage this one time, it can be fairly important if you are planning on actually using the candles. After pouring the wax into the divots in the molds (wax shrinks when it solidifies), take a 2 hour break.

I needed a third pour, which is really much the same as the second pour. About 3.5 hours after starting the first pour, you are done with the mold and can release the candles.

Note, I haven't said anything about wicks. I didn't use any wicks, because the first time I tried the wicks didn't go all the way through (upside down, remember), and thus I gave that up as a bad job. The theory is that the wick (with base) goes in the bottom and you use something like a toothpick to center it in the mold and keep the physical wick from dipping into the wax. I will eventually try it with some actual candles as I have plenty of wicks left.

Side view of the wax flowers in the bowl:

Putting along

Tuesday I went to the SnB at Peets in Harvard Square. I was bad and bought yarn while I was waiting around. Apparently Woolcott has a Frequent Buyer Card, but you have to ask for it. You get a stamp when you buy 20$ worth of yarn, an activity which is not hard to do. After 10 stamps you get 10% off your next purchase. That would certainly make buying yarn for a large project much more doable.

I like Woolcott. There is always someone there who is willing to help. They have enough employees in the place (which is great in a small store) that there is someone who can answer your questions, someone who knows the yarn in question well enough to answer some of the picky questions about a pattern. It is a small store, often crowded, and the stuff in the bins falls out all over the place. At the same time it manages to be cosy and inviting.

Yesterday, I made a start on the placecards for the wedding. I made 2.5 sets of wax flowers (last pour is tonight), and I did about 2 hours off and on of knitting on the last shawl. It is about 30 inches, but I can't remember how long the other ones are. I will probably take one of the other ones and measure it tonight.

I took yesterday off to work on wedding planning, and I did do a bit - more than I would have done if I had gone to work and tried to do all this after hours. I also went all the way from Braintree to Circles in JP. It's a long commute, but very much worth it. The first time I was there I spent more than 3 hours going through color cards to pick the yarn for the bridesmaids' shawls. The second time I was helped to use a swift and ball winder for the first time, and spent a significant part of a day there winding balls (because one was cranky and required hand balling anyway). This time I was there for Euclan. They had a gallon jug of the stuff, but I wasn't prepared to spend 55$ on something that wasn't yarn. The woman there gave me a reasonable alternative, and I spent some of my hard earned cash on a lovely lightly variegated blue/white laceweight (I think it was soysilk, but I can't remember and it didn't say). I also bought 3 skeins of Wildfoote yarn for socks.

I love Circles, but really wish it were closer. By the time I get there and back, I am exhausted. The train is just not my preferred method of travel, even if it gives me larger amounts of knitting time. The last two days have been both very productive to me and very monetarily draining. I think it is time to go on another yarn diet.

Needing a stiff drink

Desperately.

Wedding planning is probably the worst thing about marriage. There are two weeks left and all of a sudden the careful planning is not careful enough and there is way too much to do. Insanity abounds and all one can do is hold on carefully and try not to get bumped off the ride.

I keep telling myself. Two more days till the weekend. Soon it will be two days till my personal day. None of those times will be restful.

Knitting isn't relaxing. I have deadline knitting that needs to get done.
Cross-stitch isn't relaxing. There is deadline cross-stitch that I have already punted in favor of regaining a little equilibrium.
Making candles? Well, it is also for the wedding. That explains it all.

Using my hobbies to make stuff for the wedding is a thrifty option. It also might make me go bald before the wedding, negating the need to think about how I am going to wear my hair.

Only a couple more days till the weekend, and only a few more hours until I get a stiff drink.

See the Ken Hat!

When I got done the Ken Hat I put the little bugger on my computer right in front of the pattern. It is hard to say how long the hat took me. I started it in the morning before work and finished it while I was working on dinner (Chinese stir fry). Probably a little over an hour, but I had a lot of get up and go to contend with. I finished the Pinwheel hat that same night for a total of 6 Dulaan hats completed. I think it is time for me to make something other than hats.

Ripping made soothing

I went to the Peets SnB in Cambridge last night (I am trying to go every other week, so I can go to the cross-stitch night every other Thursday). The weather wasn't so bad as I got there, but was blustery and the air was full of powder snow as I left. This is the type of snow that makes the wonderful crunching sounds, so while I wanted a bit less wind I was enjoying my time out of doors.

While at the SnB, I was working on the last of the bridesmaid shawls. This one is being done in a Traveling Leaf pattern out of the Craft of lace knitting. I had to add a new color, so I lay them side by side and knit a few stitches in the pattern and let the yarn go. I got to the end, turned the work, and purled my way back. It wasn't until I went back to the lace pattern that I noticed that there just weren't all the stitches there that I thought I should have. I put the piece aside and went back to the Irish Hiking Scarf.

While commuting home, I pulled out the scarf and worked a few rows until the car got too full (long straights, so I had to be careful not to bump people). As the car emptied, I did a few more rounds and then put it aside and pulled out the offending shawl. I ripped, ripped, ripped and then carefully slid the stitches and yarnovers (the yarnovers are the hard part) onto the needles. I was just entering Quincy Adams when my stitches were all in place. By the time the train pulled into Braintree, I had knit in pattern all of the stitches and had counted to make sure that I had the appropriate number left.

This morning I knit up to and past the addition of the new ball of yarn, and it is still looking good over an inch later. I think I win.

I create for Dulaan!

I finished 3 more hats this weekend for Dulaan.

The one in front is Brown Sheep superwash wool with my hand-dyed lace mohair interspersed. This hat was causing me a lot of grief. I made a mistake and had to purl the entire hat (that includes p2tog for the decreases). Looks fine in the finishing though.

The pinwheel hats are a mix of yarns. One is two different Lion Brand yarns (blue and grey, so very adult feeling). The other is some leftover wool from the hat in front plus two different colors of Red Heart. I made that hat at 45 stitches to accommodate a larger head.

Three new Dulaan hats! (The two in the back are the Norma Pinwheel hats.)

I was bad yesterday and picked up a couple of skeins of Manos (in reds to counteract the vast quantities of blue knitting I have done) for a Ken hat. I only have 2 colors, so I might be bad and buy another skein (if I can remember the types of colors other than reds) after getting my Aveeno. My tattoo is very sensitive right now.

Spending the afternoon

I want to sit in a nice comfy chair and drink afternoon tea with one or two knitting projects at my feet. I want to eat a scone or some rich buttery cookies and think about the things I should be doing (like cleaning the condo). Instead, I will go to lunch shortly. I will then come back and work on paybacks (library accounting) and labeling magazines and books. I will intersperse this with updating a PDF to do all sorts of math with my l33t form skills. Then I will go home and feed the cat and eat some chocolate before playing one of the holy (druid).

Somewhere in all of this, I will lust over the tea at Adagio Teas. I want one of their little glass infusers, so I can have my loose-leaf tea at work. They have a Valentines Tea with strawberry pieces and rose petals. It sounds as good as my Rose Petal Black, which I do not get to drink nearly often enough because my infuser rusted shut. Ooops.

In knitting news:

Currently, I am working on the Irish Hiking Scarf for Rick. It's my first cable project, and I have maybe 4 inches of scarf done. It looks pretty neat though, so I will probably make another one when I am done. My gauge is very loose, so I will probably make any subsequent scarves of this type on needles at least 2 sizes smaller than what I am using now (I am using size 8s). I brought this project with me as an alternative to the Brioche scarf I am also working on and still might rip out entirely. The Brioche looks awfully neat, but is immediately a problem because it wants to come off the double pointed needles in my bag. Thus it is at home.

This is my 6th day of not buying any yarn. For all that I have a ton of yarn at home, this is not being easy.

A complete attack of the blahs

I am still at work (still makes it sound like I have been here forever), having skipped most of my lunch break. No lunchtime crafting (cross-stitch or knitting) makes for a lethargic gal. On the other hand, there are massive stretches of cleared off desk, which makes me very happy.

I have a tiny amount of mail check in to do, and a small project I would like to get off my desk today. Not too taxing, which is part of the problem. I am in one of the grumps that wants to use my brain. Sounds like it is time to start working on one of my not-so-work-related projects, probably the DnD Character Sheet of Doom (PDF forms and lots of fixing).