AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

losing consciousness

Midnight was obviously too late for me last night. I stayed up and watched the women's long program, which ended with Mirai Nagasu's sweet long program at about quarter of.

This morning, of course, I felt like I had been hit by the piledriver of bad planning and no amount of caffeine or food was going to truly change how the Olympics kicked my butt. There are two more long nights ahead of me and then the Olympics will be over for another two years, when I will forget this experience and instead stay up too late watching beach volleyball, the marathon, and tons of swimming events.

I'm planning on doing Boston's Run to Remember again this year, so half marathon training starts on Monday. Thankfully, I have cross-training down to a (yawns pitifully) science, or is dog walking and other walking not good enough for cross-training purposes?

poofy jackets hold a lot of water

So, I walked home from Quincy Center (the short route at that) and somewhere at about the halfway point I realized that my jacket was leaking water to my skin.

I got home (and almost immediately went back out to walk Victor) and I was soaked through a large puffy jacket, a hooded sweatshirt and a turtleneck. It has taken most of the evening to dry out enough not to feel like I am waterlogged. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to make sure that everything in my bag was secured in a plastic bag. My Fall 2009 copy of VK (which I'm currently knitting a sweater from) is also soaked in a triangle from the midpoint of the magazine to the bottom of the issue. I have it open, and hopefully these pages will dry well enough that I can still use the magazine beyond making this one sweater.

The rain is loud enough that it is drowning out the Olympics on the television. Not a problem, because the NBC announcers aren't always worth listening to.

mr. nose sniffs again!

The weather this weekend has been nice enough to spend some quality time outside. Playing in the backyard doesn't help me finish my sweater for the Knitting Olympics, but it makes both Victor and I happier people. Our house came with a lot of random balls left in the backyard, which is great for Victor. We can kick the ball towards him, and he grabs them and drags them all over the yard. Most of them are losing air, so his grip can get pretty good. 

This weekend was a lot of cleaning, but now I can look at all of the surfaces in the kitchen (not just the sink and counters) and feel like I'm mess free. There is mess in other rooms of course, but the kitchen is a mess-free zone. Yippee!

My sweater is coming along, but I am still working on the body. I have not quite gotten to the split between the armholes, but I hope to at least finish the body by the end of the Olympics. I won't have won, but the point was to stop putting off making this sweater. I find it easy to start the small projects, but I often put off the larger projects even if I have all of the materials. I think it is that slight nervousness about making something with finishing work.

In this case, while the finishing work is a little on the extensive side - shoulder and sleeve seams, button bands, and a collar that is folded in half and sewn down - the biggest thing is picking up stitches. I'm on the body and I've already picked up just over 400 stitches. There will be more picked up for each of the sleeves and then the normal finishing stuff. If you don't love picking up stitches, you probably don't want to work on this!

too stupid to sleep

It's the Olympics. Not a surprise to anyone, but I'm still up. It's almost 2 hours after my bedtime and my alarm goes off at 5 a.m. for Victor's morning walk. 

Why does the figure skating have to be so late in the day? Ignoring the time zone difference, it is still 4 hours for 20 pairs skaters to take the ice. I'm going to be so dead during the work week for the next two weeks. I certainly don't get a break tomorrow. It's the men's short program.

I have been working on the Rib and Cable cardigan. I finally started it Friday night during the Opening Ceremonies, and I'm about halfway through the cabled waist band. I should be ready to pick up for the bottom ribbing either tomorrow night or Wednesday. I'm loving the Wool Bamboo that I'm using for this sweater. It's a beautiful yarn, and it's sheen was what drew me to use it for this project. This sweater is hopefully going to be my new keep warm at the office sweater. It's beautiful grey color will make it very versatile for my wardrobe.

Parlez vous Olympics!

I'm done with my stint at Au Chocolat for this year. It was fun, as normal, and there were a lot of great products (we sell these handmade champagne truffles, which are spectacular!). This year there weren't quite as many goofy products. Last year there were candy "garments" and huge sugar daddies and mugs shaped like a woman's upper torso. This year we had for Twilight fans the Twilight hearts. Unsurprisingly caramel was Edward. We also had these great cow mugs, which had a cute saying or phrase on them. These were a lot of fun. I wanted to get one for my mom, but I waited to see if they were all bought and they were!

I decided I needed to see a different group of friends on Friday and so I grabbed my knitting and went to my friend's house to watch the Opening Ceremony. I loved the lights and dancing. I need to see if the opera singer, Measha Brueggergosman, has any music available on iTunes. While she did have a ton of vibrato, I loved the fact that she was an opera singer with good enough diction that you could still tell what the words were. I'm used to listening to Opera and reading the lyrics to remind myself what is actually being sang.

I started for the Knitting Olympics the Rib and Cable Cardigan, which I have had the yarn for since about September. I am making the large, because I am not sure I would be comfortable with a very close fit that is suggested by the designer. Well, I might be doing the large. This project starts with a cabled waistband, so I have some wiggle room. I need to go back to Ravelry and see if people my size have had a better fit with one size smaller than expected rather than making the large. So, how much smaller than the bust measurement is a very close fit again?

Taming the Flying Spaghetti Monkey Monster

Or how to weave in ends and ends and ends.

Today over lunch, I started weaving in monkey ends. I started with the brain end, a slightly less dense patch of ends north of the nose. Between bites of no-longer-frozen burrito, I wove in black ends, slate-y ends, baby-blue-y ends, and some true-blue-y ends. Ends woven in: 18. This is just the area between the top of the head and the midpoint of the ears. I broke away from the weaving every once in a while to try and straighten some of the stitches from the front using the tapestry needle. I will probably have to go over the entire thing before washing and blocking it, but it already looks better than the fearful thing it was when I put the monster aside last week. Rahr!

Ramping up for the finish

I finished knitting the gusset on Sunday. I have been taking a breather for a bit before blocking and weaving in ends, which I will be starting tonight. The fabric is ordered for lining the backpack.

Generally, I am making good time.

However, I did have a couple of other pieces that I planned to do for the knitting olympics. To that end, I started the finishing work for a Dulaan vest yesterday. I just have to pick up stitches around the armholes and the neck to do the final ribbing and weave in a few more ends.

Success!

(This doesn't really have that much to do with the Knit Olympics, really!)

I just got my little buttons made, my galleries created, and my first couple of pictures for the Knitting Olympics up. I'll actually probably write some more about doing the intarsia before my brain atrophies, but now it is time to go home and practice my music for Deceit.

Happy long weekend!

㿊㿄㿧，㿊㿄㿧，㿊㿄㿧，去る？

For some reason I just have this silly Japanese children's song stuck in my head. I'm changing the words a bit, because I am plowing through on the largest of my Knitting Olympics projects. I have finished the intarsia (if you can call my blob intarsia), finished the upper front and the back. I have only a few pieces of knitting left to do: straps and gusset. I still need to buy fabric (does anyone have some bright yellow fabric with monkeys and bananas on it?), which will probably be a lunch trip either Thursday or Friday this week followed by a few early morning blocking sessions.

Pictures will definitely be forthcoming. Someone should learn from my intarsia mistakes if nothing else.

Casting on

I wanted to go to Doyles with all of the cool kids, but I had an obligation that came first.

I wanted to start the Knitting Olympics with my Cascade 220 and the backpack, but had to rely on the hubby to pull the pattern, needles and yarn for me and bringing them tonight.

So, I didn't knit on the monkey backpack. But I am casting on now (no pictures of casting on, because they are boring), and will be swatching part of this night/early morning. By tomorrow I will have decided whether I am going to continue with my stash of Cascade 220 (the pattern actually calls for Lambs Pride Worsted, which I find to be a thicker yarn) as the pattern is written or if I will increase the size of the background to make the backpack a little larger.

(Knitting pictures tomorrow, because I believe I will have something finished that is not either the monkey backpack nor any other Olympic-related knitting... umm, I must be extra stupid to be knitting projects that aren't the Olympic ones right now).