AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

A new year

It's less than an hour before starting 2008, though given my computer and library work I've been typing the new year for about two months now.  For the start of '08, I appear to have caught a bit of a cold and I'm babying myself with tea and quite a bit of sleep.

The transition from the old year to the new isn't all bad (and even the cold isn't bad, just a little annoying).  I came in second in my fantasy football team this year (my first year playing), and while it would have been cool to win it all or at least have had a closer final game I'm happy with the results.  I'll just have to crush them all next year. 

Fantasy football is a little odd.  I went from being an indifferent fan of the New England Patriots -
almost a necessity for work in the northeastern part of the United States - to rooting for players.  While it was great that the Patriots ended their regular season 16-0, it was much more important for Brian Westbrook to make a lot of plays and rack up the points or for my quarterback to not throw an interception.  I think I enjoyed football more without thinking about the team rivalries and instead focusing on the individuals and what they bring to their teams.

So, tomorrow (or about 40 minutes from now) is the start of a new year.  I already have a few pictures of the scariest hat on the block to post and a new gorgeous project to work on.  I have made a ton of ornaments and am gearing up to start on things for my store and life looks like it is going to be grand.  So, goodbye 2007.  You were a good year and I'll miss you a bit, but I'm looking forward to the new.  Hello 2008!

making good (or the oh my Goodness, you did what?)

2007 has been good to me, despite my complaints about the number of weddings and other events.  It was a high cost year and Stashalong actually helped me buy less yarn.  I'm not yet sure if I have finished more projects, but I am more likely to look at what I have (and what I haven't finished) before starting something new - the only thing I really cared about when I joined Stashalong.

For this Christmas my hubby got me Yarn (it's capitalized, because it is that pretty).  He's trying to get a better idea of what I like, and probably learning more about knitting than he would ever care to know in the process.  I have the yarn for the Lacy Dress (lazy link to the dress in Ravelry) from the 2007 Holiday Vogue Knitting.  My eyes were very wide when I saw exactly what I had been gifted.  The yarn is gorgeous and the project is huge.  Definitely a 2008 project, because it might take me all year to finish.

I figured I should finish some of my current projects first.  I have a ton of WIPs.  There are about 9 of them that I admit to on Ravelry, but there are a few projects that haven't made it onto the list.  I asked my hubby this morning when he thought I should start the project with the yarn he gifted me.  To be more accurate, I asked how many of my old projects I should finish before starting the new one.  He said zero, and my eyes got pretty big.  He has a pretty good idea of how many unfinished projects I have (let's put it this way, I believe the Ravelry project list has it currently listed in the low double digits), so I pushed him a little more.  He said I should finish one project and it should be the pink one.

This pink one.  I am more than halfway done, so I now know what I'm going to work on this weekend (after I finish a crocheted wreath for Monday).  Of course, I'm hoping to finish more than that in the next four days, because I have enough close to the end projects to fill close to a week with FOs.  Let work on the pink thing commence!

Huckleberry Ascot

The Huckleberry Ascot was from the Holiday 2007 Interweave Knits.  The yarn called for was Blue Sky Alpaca's Melange, which Windsor Button had recently started stocking.  Melange was a dream to work with (I will probably want to do another project in their yarns - maybe the Alpaca & Silk or their regular sport weight alpaca), soft and non-splitty.  The color is slightly heathered and just enough purple to make the recipient happy.

The project is a good practice in short rows, bobbles and picking up stitches making it a good choice for an adventuresome beginner.  Because the base of the project is garter stitch, you can concentrate on the techniques involved without worrying about the differences in stitch tension. 

I bought 3 skeins to work this project (the pattern called for two, but paranoia suggests that I should buy an extra skein and keep the receipt).  I used just under the two full skeins.  Now I just need to decide if I'm going to make something else with the other skein of yarn or if I'm going to return it for store credit.  The yarn is nice enough to want to keep the extra skein for myself and the weight of the yarn is light enough to make it a good choice for projects like Fetching.  Of course, before I make another pair of Fetchings I should finish the first pair I started last year.  Maybe I'll get that done before the new year.  They still only need the proto-thumbs after all.

a gift for my husband

I normally refer to my really old unfinished projects as "shame" projects, and I've been trying to finish at least one a month (usually I limit it to one even if it was a really easy finish).  Last year I started and nearly finish a bag for my hubby.  It was going to be a prototype in my geeky craft store.  I loved the idea, but the bag needed a lining and a closure (and some ends woven in).  I am not a big sewing fan, though I like handsewing more than I enjoy sewing by machine most of the time.

The monster, a beholder, wasn't hard to make.  I made the mouth opening out of a picot bindoff, picked up and knit the tongue, and used bobbles as a bit of a surface for the eyestalks.  I did a lot of waste yarn in the body of the monster and went back later to pick up stitches to knit the graduated icord.  I probably should have stuffed a couple of the bigger icords to give them more roundness.

I used a large piece (though less than a half yard) of gauze to line the body and black snaps to close the mouth.

There are a lot of things I would do differently if I made another one, including making sure that the mouth opening was at least 6 inches to 7 inches around.  This mouth is a little too small to allow easy access to the contents.  Beholders normally have big mouths!

Merry Christmas!

(I don't love cows, but I give my mom so much cow stuff that when I saw that Cool Text had this option...) 

Christmas isn't my favorite holiday, but it is still a good time of year.  The smell of snow in the air always makes me feel happy.  Mixed with the scent of the sea and the image of Orion in the sky, winter is one of the best times of year.  So, my fingers are crossed for more snow, a Patriots win in the Superbowl, and a win of my very own in the Fantasy Football League.  They are little things and not getting them won't make me sad, but life is a little brighter with things like these to think of and anticipate.

I really never thought of myself as a football fan, but playing fantasy football really does make you pay a bit more attention to the sports world in general.  If this keeps up I might pay attention to something other than the New England Revolution and the Red Sox in terms of the professional sports franchise.

Holiday Rice Pudding

I had a lot of time in the kitchen today, which included my first batch of slow cooker Seitan (would help if I had eaten or prepared seitan before), my normal black beans and rice, and holiday rice pudding.

I haven't made rice pudding since high school or some other forever ago time, but it is definitely one of the easier desserts to make.  Mine made probably between 4 and 6 servings (I made tonight's servings a little large, but 6 wouldn't be unreasonable).  My husband loves rice pudding and this was a big hit with him.

Holiday Rice Pudding

3/4 cup rice (I used a mix of sushi rice and white rice)
1.5 cups water
1.5 cups skim milk
1/3 cup sugar
a dash of salt

Bring the water to a boil.  Add the rice, lower the temperature to a simmer, and cover. Cook the rice until the rice is well done (it can even go to overcooked as long as the grains aren't hard) - about 20 minutes.  Mix the rice with the milk, sugar and salt and cook over medium heat for about 15-20 minutes or until it gets thick and creamy.

1/2 cup eggnog (I used pumpkin eggnog)
1/8 cup brandy
1 egg

Beat these three ingredients together and then add the rice to the mixture.  Cook for about 2-4 minutes.  The mixture will continue to get creamier.  Remove from heat and add a pat of butter, a teaspoon of vanilla and about a half teaspoon of nutmeg.  Stir until the butter is melted.

Delicious!  My version of the recipe was heavily based on a recipe from All Recipes (Creamy Rice Pudding).  I'm sure the recipe is really tasty as it is written, but in a household that loves eggnog and pumpkin these choices were a clear winner.

weekending

I just got home from seeing Sweeney Todd.  While not as good as seeing the musical live (when the MIT Theater Guild ran the movie it had a overly architected wall of blood).  This version was a bit gorier than most musical renditions, and a bit darker.  The humor wasn't removed, but it just wasn't quite as prevalent as in the other rendition I have seen. 

I need to remember to buy the CD at some point (of the Broadway musical).  I can add it to the other Sondheim I have on my iPod. 

Of course, Sweeney isn't the only thing that has been keeping me away from the knitting.  We received our laptop from the Give One Get One project. I love the little machine, despite the learning curve.  It runs Linux, and I am exploring the programs that come with the little alien machine (it is bright green and has 'ears' when you unlock the monitor) as well as figuring out how I can get into the background a bit to practice programming in Java.  I know it has something called "Pippy" which is an area (vocabulary is failing me) for writing programs in Python.  Of course, like any machine the first things I tried to do included accessing the internet and finding a game.  This mostly means playing Sim City and realizing that there are some connection issues I need to figure out.  But hey, it has Logo!  Turtle Art, which is more fun than it probably should be.  Maybe I'm just simple.

Counting the Ornaments

I have 3.5 ornaments left to make, and at least 1.5 of them need to be finished tonight.  They are stockings.  Smallish things with my first ever short row heels.  I love them.  They are perfectly red and white with a bit of glitz, matching the little stocking caps.  I might be up all night long working on them, but I can't completely bring myself to care. 

It is snowing again and it is beautiful.  I'm meeting friends after work for a little bit of good cheer, and then I'm going to go home and root for bad fantasy football scores (I'm in the playoffs and am going against my FIL tonight, who has 2 players in tonight's game). 

It's been a day of good luck.  I went to the local CVS and they offered to give me my cash back in rolls of quarters!  It was like a gift to go near the bank without needing to go in.  There were sweets at work, but I exercised my high levels of willpower and have denied myself (something I don't normally care about, but there was a day earlier this week where I had peppermint bark before breakfast).

I have learned new things, revisited old things, and generally have set myself up to enjoy most of the next two weeks.  It's a good time of year.

fini

Class is done!  Now I'm on a whirlwind tour of how many knitted stockings I can get done in 2 days (I have a lot of meetings at work this week which are over lunch, which cuts into my knitting time). 

I must Knit Like a Machine!  Of course, one of the stockings is nearly half way (I need to print up cosmicpluto's short row heel tutorial), so if I get a seat on the train I should be able to do the heel and be well on the way to toe-dom by the time I get home. 

Lately (or at least today) I feel like the world is moving at ludicrous speed.  I'm trying desperately to get all of these things done, done, done!  I don't even have any Christmas knitting to speak of, but I am still swamped.  Of course, being busy just means I want to procrastinate.  Make little arts, do a tiny cross-stitch, play with beads, start a new knitting project...

Oh, and I finished something early this morning!  (But I do not have the pictures with me, so you will have to live with this picture instead).  Our little black tree has been surprisingly unmolested by Saru-chan.  Our kitty doesn't know it is made of plastic, or we'd probably get home and find it completely denuded.

In another bout of randomness, I am the proud owner of a potato bug stuffy from ikea.  What would life be like without friends, weird stuffed animals, and chocolate? 

Fun times!

Inching closer

Of course, I don't have the time for this.  For anything really, but I spent a little bit of time on PhotoFiltre (a shareware program that has a lot of features similar to Paint Shop Pro or PhotoShop) creating an avatar and a banner for Etsy.  Even if I never sell a thing, I enjoy more opportunities to play with the graphics software, pretending that I know what I'm doing. 

My final starts in the next hour or so.  I'm a little nervous, but I know I'm ready.  All of the things I'm supposed to be able to do from the sample questions, I was able to answer.  I have nearly 40 notecards, which detail the code, vocabulary and when or how to use the different data structures and algorithms we learned in the class.  I don't have my notebook or my textbook, so I can't confuse myself or stress myself out with paranoid searches through the materials for one last thing.

Hopefully the final will not take the 3 full hours slated to it, and I will be able to go home, have some tea, and knit for a little while.  If it takes the full time, then I will feel good that I answered everything to the best of my ability and I will go home and make dinner and knit on the gifts (so I can mail things tomorrow).