AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

finding a masculine side

Sorcerer is the second show where I will be a "guy" singing tenor in the chorus. With Pirates, my costume included a loose piratical shirt, sash, black pants, and boots. I also had a fake moustache to help encourage the illusion that I was a guy. I wore the tightest compression style sports bra I had.

This time around I'm trying a different approach. I'm considering binding, though I should practice before the dress rehearsals, so I can get an idea of how comfortable it is and how (if) it affects my singing. I'm also back to the gym. I'm doing weight lifting and running again, trying to trim down and to increase muscle strength in my upper body. I know that as a woman I am unlikely to have the hormonal balance that makes guys more likely to have the full inverted triangle when they work out, but I figured I could give it a shot. At worst I don't look anything more like a guy, but I am stronger. There really isn't a lose situation here.

Unfortunately, in my 1.5 years away from consistent working out, I have lost a lot of the strength, flexibility and speed gains I had made at the time. Yesterday I did my first run in a while, a PEB 1.5 mile test run (scores for 35-39 females). Suffice to say that if I had been actually tested, I would not have passed. I get to do this again on Friday and see if I can make a better effort. I miss the days when I had a sub 9 minute mile.

Fitocracy has been helping out in that regard. The point/leveling system and the extra rewards for trying new exercises has been a boon to encouraging me at the gym. Instead of just hopping on an exercise bike or elliptical, I am using free weights, including barbells and researching tutorials for things like deadlifts and pendlay rows. Heck, I'm even doing the 100 pushups thing, though I'm currently in the land of knee pushups. I'm not sure that I'm getting additional definition yet, but I feel like my muscles are changing. Also, I should use gloves. My left hand has a large blister from yesterday's free weight workout.

The only problem with exercise actually is that I haven't figured out how to knit and weight lift at the same time. Heck, I can barely jog and knit at the same time (though I haven't tried that since the disaster with the hippopotamasusus socks).

3:50 a.m.

I cannot for the life of me explain why I am up now. Really. However, I have read some web comics, did some baking, cleaned what feels like a metric tons of dishes (it is probably isn't even a complete sinkful, but it did involve washing the dutch oven), and making hot cocoa (well, I will be making old fashioned hot cocoa as soon as I am done with this).

It is now 5:30 and I'm wondering what I'm going to do for the next 30 minutes before my husband wakes up. Probably knit. I have to finish my current blanket if I am going to start the beekeepers quilt next.

yesterday was a soup kind of day

Ah serendipity (and unrelated books I loved in early childhood) was the order of the day. The latest recipe from Smitten Kitchen popped up in my reader late yesterday. It combined with a well stocked farmer's market and food from my CSA. 2.5 pounds of tomatoes later, and a baguette later I was on my way home.

Tonight's dinner: roasted tomato soup with broiled cheese

A few changes I made.

I didn't have stock, so I used a teaspoon of Better than Bouillon in 4 cups of water.

I added 3 carrots, peeled and chopped into rounds.

I cut the kernels off 3 ears of corn and added it after pureeing the soup with an immersion blender.

I used a 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme instead of fresh.

I used a ton more garlic

The soup takes a fairly long time, but most of it isn't active time. Cut some tomatoes in half, add salt pepper and oil. Add unpeeled garlic to foil and roast it all for an hour. Puree and cook for almost 30 minutes. And then French Onion soup those tasty rounds of bread and cheese.

There is enough soup for probably about 4 or 5 more servings. Some of the soup will be probably get the cheese and bread treatment, but the soup is delicious without it.

It was too hot to eat for a while, but I did anyway. Yum!

When I make this next I think I will add harissa to it. I loved the harissa and carrot salad (also from Smitten Kitchen) and making this into a harissa tomato soup. It would be awesome. Instead of cheddar I would add a tablespoon of feta to each bowl.

Now my CSA includes only some old items: cabbage, cucumbers and eggs. I love knowing that I am keeping up with the produce. We'll see how long this lasts with my rehearsal schedule.

[10 Tuesday] news from the past

Heh. This week's 10 for Tuesday are headlines from the year I was born. I suppose I could go to Wikipedia to find that, but I'm differently lazy and instead I looked for headlines from my birthday (and other dates) in 1975 on the New York Times.

Strangely 1975 is within the date range that you need to pay for articles on the NYT. If I had been born before 1923 or after 1986 then I wouldn't have to pay to see the text of the articles. My family didn't make a keepsake album that included newspaper headlines or if they did it was one of the casualties of moving cross country and putting things into storage.

1. Shift of Malcolm X's Successor Stirs Black Muslim Speculation [NYT] About Louis Farrakhan, who I have only the most passing of knowledge. Obviously I need to do some reading.

2. Primary: New Hampshire Again Alone [NYT] About a failed attempt by neighboring states to try to arrange a regional primary.

3. State Confiscates Pet Deer and Arrests Its Owner; But Animal Dies After Being Shot With Tranquilize... [NYT] Why didn't I ever have a pet deer growing up? Oh, maybe because it might involve trauma to young children who aren't ready to see Bambi.

4. Ford to City: Drop Dead [via Wikipedia and NY Daily News] This is apocryphal. I have seen links that claim he never said this, but really it does make for a great entry here!

5. People and Business; Woolworth's President Resigns [NYT] Do you remember Woolworth's? I do barely. It's like remembering Bradleys or Ames, only a much better shop.

6. Course in Erotic Art Fails to Attract Ayes [NYT] A course in erotic art, scheduled at Glassboro State College this summer, has been canceled because of lack of interest. Hey, I am 12 and it made me chuckle.

7. Scientists Discover How Army Ant Rallies Forces for an Attack [NYT] This was actually pretty cool. It is a good thing that there are ton of headlines available, because a lot of them just look dreadfully tame.

8. SHOP TALK; Keeping Up With Crafts [NYT] See, there were crafts back then! You know, macrame.

9. Detroit Police Agree On Unpaid Holidays To Save 550 Jobs [NYT] Yup. Bad economy equals hard measures no matter what the decade.

10. 213 Students Seized By Burma Troops To Stem Protests [NYT] Yup. Students protesting. I don't remember this one (obviously), but I do remember Tiananmen Square. I had a Chinese pen pal at the time, so I was much more interested in this than I would have expected.

There. The news of the day.

before dawn

Ah, my body has this siren call for waking before dawn. Today I've been up since 3:45. I have made zucchini muffins (and a loaf of zucchini bread with the leftover batter), done some dishes, read my web comics, and messed around with my new phone.

I hate the new phone process. It isn't a matter of whether or not the phone is any good. It is all in how long it takes to set up the phone and add my contacts back in. My husband and I have taken the leap away from Verizon, but only time will tell if we enjoy the change. We both got LG phones that have both 3G and Wifi capability, so I will finally have a phone that I can use to look up the bus schedule on the fly (I have the OpenMBTA app on my iPod, but that only works in a wifi location).

I told my husband that I should be able to get through the big basket of vegetables each week from our CSA despite being on a rehearsal schedule. Yesterday I put that into practice with a fantasy football and cooking day. I made cinnamon sugar radish chips, and eggplant ravioli. I love the idea of ravioli, but with my skill level it is not the easiest or fasted pasta to make. I have a standard pasta maker (the one with the crank that always falls out) and one of the 12 depression ravioli presses. I made almost 5 dozen ravioli and still have enough pasta dough (though it will be tougher now that it has been rolled) to make possibly lasagna noodles or fettucine or spaghetti.

I love cooking and now that we are doing Chore Wars I get points for making dinner. It makes something that feels like a chore when I'm tired worth a little something.

My zucchini muffins were based on the recipe from Smitten Kitchen. However, I attempted to make them healthier. I dialed back the sugar and used a mix of light brown sugar and granulated sugar. I cut the oil in half and replaced it with low fat yogurt. I added dried berries and cherries. And because I was out of vanilla (how does that keep on happening) and baking soda, I used almond extract and 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder. They look good and domed nicely. I'm trying to resist the siren call of eating one while they are still warm with a pat of butter.

Of course, it is now almost 6 a.m. Time to get ready for work. I was going to bike in, but I think I'll save that for later in the week.

the happy finish dance

Oh, it is finished! Finished!

See, the happy face (though it did take more than one picture to get a facial expression that didn't show how much I hate having my picture taken)!

I have been enamored of Oranje since I saw the pattern in the winter Knitty. Of course, I wish I was small enough to have knit one of the smallest sizes rather than the size 40.

My first fairisle project was a baby hat in a class with Mary Jane Mucklestone at SAW in June. I made Elinor's Mittens last month, and they were awesome and gave me to confidence to tackle a much larger project.

Oranje calls for Bugga!, but I just couldn't find 3 skeins I liked with interesting contrast colors. When the Camp Loopy challenge came up, I chose solids from the Loopy Ewe Solid Series (the purple) and Spud and Chloe Fine (the green and white).

These yarns came in the 50 gram putups rather than the 100 grams of Bugga!, so I ordered 6 of the purple and 1 each of the contrast colors.

6! Why did I buy 6 skeins? I did run out of white. I finished it off with some of the white from the blanket I've been working on (Cascade Heritage). I had some green left. And after all of the knitting and finishing was done today I had 2 whole skeins of the purple left and 26 grams. Mary Jane commented that I knit like her, in a way that conserves yarn but I have never seen it quite so clearly before.

2.5 skeins of yarn is two pairs of socks (my socks weigh on average 66 grams). Gosh. What am I making with all of this extra yarn!?

 

My arrows are a little wonky, but I love them anyway.

Things I learned:

Just hand sew the dang steeks. Sew them down by hand 2 or 3 times on each side but still do it by hand. My machine sewn steeks meandered. That made picking up stitches more harrowing than it needed to be. I ended up hand sewing after the rest of the finishing was over the steek edges near the worst areas.

I started this project by accident as a size 44 and simply decreased down to my size. I did not do any waste shaping. The extra fit at the bottom is a good thing, because this sweater is long. Of course, it would still look better with, umm, better foundation garments or losing 5-10 pounds. While the sweater is supposed to be close fitting, this sweater doesn't glide over my lumps and bumps. I love it anyway, and it is super warm!

Lastly, working 3 colors is not that hard. However, the length of my floats or something in the arrows made that a little wonky. I'm not sure if it would still be wonky if I knit it again. The three colored triangles were perfectly fine. I'm not sure I've actually seen a finished piece that does the triangles that way. Even the sample in the Knitty pattern is done in horizontal stripes.

Also, because my steek was a meandering drunken fool, I ate the first column near the patterning at the top for a bit to give me a little more safety in picking up stitches. It was fine, though it does mean that I am missing half a green arrow. While I am often a perfectionist, I left that behind with this project. I'm still learning. I have another sweater in the works from last year that also has colorwork that I've been putting off. I don't think I need to worry about putting it off anymore.

pass me the demon juice

It feels like forever since I posted. I've been busy.

I auditioned for The Sorcerer. I requested that they make me a man (with blond hair and a tan...), and voila I am a member of the Men's Chorus (Tenor 1).

We had a sing through on Monday, which proved that this was not music I had listened to incessantly.

We had rehearsal on Wednesday where the tenors rocked (no, tenors are not conceited) as we learned a good amount of the music including the song that implies that love potions are made of distilled essences from demons and hags. WTF. I know Gilbert was a man with issues, but if you ever wanted some additional evidence that he didn't think much of love, marriage or, well, people. Here, have a Sorcerer.

I also have picked up Music Studio Lite (if I really love it, then I will upgrade to the full version), which lets me plunk out my notes on the piano, so I can practice.

My sweater for Camp Loopy (project 3 baby!) needs to be done tonight. Thankfully I do not have any rehearsal and barely have to show functionality tonight. I have 8 buttons left to sew on. I also have grosgrain ribbon, but I haven't decided if I really want to add it yet. I was going to bring the sweater to knitting on Saturday and ask for advice then. So, expect pictures tonight of a finished cardigan. It isn't bad for a month of work at all.

being a geek is hilarious

Last night we had our gaming session. I'd call it old school D&D, but 4th Edition only feels like old school D&D in terms of the body count. We had a near TPK, and I spent much of the evening laughing my ass off (and between combat rounds playing Words with Friends - multitasking helps make combat less dull).

Our lack of preparation and tactics has burned a whole in our party 3 characters tall by three characters wide. And I ran like a frightened school girl clutching my remaining 2 hitpoints to my scaly chest and hurrying back to town. I spent a lot of session laughing my ass off, because what was happening was so ridiculous. Even if I had died, I would have continued laughing my tail off. I just haven't had a lot of time to become truly attached to Zeshra (dragonborn warden of paultry levels).

And it wasn't a wasted evening in any of my other defining terms either. I worked on my sweater, my camp Loopy project 3, that i have just 2 weeks left to finish. I'm almost through chart A of the fairisle yoke of Oranje. There is even a chance in hell that I will have a progress picture before I finish it up. Progress pictures are definitely not my strong suit.

Enjoy a three day weekend. It's a good time to be a knitter in Massachusetts. The temperature has been a lot cooler this week, so a pile of wool in the lap doesn't feel hideous.

nothing is done without XP

My husband and I are doing both Chore Wars and Fitocracy as ways to encourage ourselves to be more active and keep the house cleaner. We are both competitive enough that we will make good use of these tools in order to get more done in a way that stops leaving either one of us feeling that we do everything around the house.

Chore Wars is very D&D style. You have stats and your chores involve wandering monsters and treasure as additional flavor. You have a character class and a character image that is definitely old school D&D with elves and dwarves and undead and various fantastically garbed humans. We added more chores last night: litter box related and dog walking. Funnily, my husband's chores for dealing with the litter box involve fighting elder excrementals and mine for walking the dog involve poo demons. Great minds? I'm hoping that this tool makes it less likely that I will come home and be completely pissed when I see my kitchen a mess, because the mess will be more likely to be picked up as we go along.

Fitocracy has a different feel and is currently in beta. If you want an invite, please let me know. There is leveling, and quests and achievements. People complain how much different exercises are worth, but to me it doesn't matter. The goal is that you exercise in order to level and you want to level and level a lot. I am at level 5 with a vast amount of dog walking, some weight lifting, a bit of bike riding and some running on the treadmill. If I ever make it to the gym again I will be super far ahead. The best thing is that it is an additional encouragement for me to give Victor a walk rather than relying on him having fun in the back yard. I like giving Victor a walk, but last year I was giving him 2 long walks each day and it started feeling like an obligation more than it felt like a companionable time together. He deserves these walks, so anything that makes both of us happy is all to the good.

Now it is time for me to slip on the flip flops and get Victor into his walking gear.

Thanks everybody for the well wishes for Victor. He has an abscess which became infected. He is on antibiotics, and they are already working. The swelling has gone down and his energy has gone back up.