AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

buttons...

Chris is now at home, taking care of Q, while I am attempting to bring home the veggie bacon, but not real veggie bacon (that's cruel) and to learn all of the things.

It is awesome, because, unlike daycare, Chris sends me a picture or two of our little boy every day. Or at least every day so far, as it is only day 2.

It is horrible, because the pictures make me want to race home and give our little boy a snuggle. I have not learned to either teleport or to colocate, so I cannot do that and keep the day job.

School is going well, or as well as one would expect for it only being week two of classes. I am even getting some knitting done. Not just the sweater I made for me, but I have a sweater for Q that is waiting for a button.

It is a sweater I started at Squam 2013.

Wow.

When it is finally done, I am going to be so happy to unveil that. People who were in my cabin that year will almost certainly remember the yarn and remember the project, because I was knitting away almost every evening on it.

Now, it is time to go and do more homework!

Beautiful Stripes!

For Camp Loopy project 3, we needed to knit 800 yards minimum using our favorite colors. As much as I joke about black, the "color of my soul," I love blue. In the past few years I've become more of a fan of bright colors. When I saw Stripes Gone Crazy, I knew I wanted to make this project.

Less than one month later (I blocked it yesterday), I have a new cardigan with beautiful stripes that has a wonderfully soft hand. This was a super wonderful project. The short rows kept it fast and eliminated the boredom factor.

I did make one major mistake. I should have done the stripes on the other sleeves. I had already done about 10 narrow stripes when I realized I was knitting the left sleeve with the right sleeve pattern.

The sweater is nice thin layer that is perfect for an office or any other place with air conditioning.

I completely want to make another one. Maybe with the dark color being the main color. I don't think I've ever made a full-size sweater twice, so the idea of making this one twice on size 4 needles in sock yarn is a bit crazy.

Unrelated to the sweater, I cannot believe that it is only a single month until Q is a year old! I will be in classes for an entire month at that point, but I know I want to make cake and ice cream for his first birthday. I am learning more about time management than I thought I would ever know. It's all about speeding through those necessary things in the day, so I can spend more time on the homework and with my family.

Now that my last project for Camp Loopy is done, it is time for me to go through my stash and to pick quick projects I can do around my homework. The writing class has a large time commitment, and the programming class looks like it will ramp up to a similar level of work.

 

Choosing an IDE and other first week of class things

I'm sitting in Q's nursery room, about 5 feet from his crib as he falls asleep. I'm back early from my first CS class, because we went over chapter 1, course objectives, basic programming information, and the syllabus. It wasn't a surprise that we got out early. The first chapter focuses in part on the ubiquitous "Hello, World!" program that I can write in at least a couple of different programming languages, including the C++ that the course is taught in.

The sounds of Q's quiet breathing and the sound of the washing machine are soothing as I contemplate installing a second IDE on my school laptop (yes, I bought a laptop for school, a 5-year old Macbook Air doesn't meet the course requirements). I mean, it is free, and it is Microsoft, so it will be good to be familiar with it. I will probably download it on Saturday during naptime.

So, writing, a video introduction, an IDE and finishing a sweater all before Monday. Sounds like a wonderful weekend to me!

Time management (for parents?)

Time management is for everybody. Intellectually I know that, but now that I am a parent I feel like I have to be even more careful to get things done when the opportunities present themselves. When I first met Abby Glassenberg that was one of the themes of her blog: using the time while she naps and being efficient and on the ball in the time available. The interstices between when I am needed by our little boy are opportunities to get everything else done. It is time for me to study, because I'm going back to school. However, in the past few days before classes start, it is time for me to cook, clean, and knit.

Or bake.

I've had Booze cakes : confections spiked with spirits, wine, and beer out for most of the past two months. I keep renewing the book, because I hadn't found the time to actually try any of the recipes.

The book is more than a few years old at this point, but the recipes are still good (better than the recipes in Once a Month Cooking. The library copy is from the early 90s and the recipes show their 1970s and 1980s roots). However, there are a few flaws with the recipe I tried.

Pumpkin Martini Cakes. Sounds delicious.

The recipe comes out well, a moist cake with a tender crumb. However, the recipe lists a number of servings without giving you an idea of how many pans you will need or their size. Twelve servings. Individual cake pans or mini muffin pans. 

Well, I can tell you that I made 12 full size cupcakes and filled a 6-cavity regular donut pan with the batter from a single recipe batch. 

With the cake recipe comes a spiked maple glaze and a spiked cream cheese frosting. Last night's dessert was a donut drizzled with glaze and then filled in the center with a tiny scoop of frosting. Delicious!

This is what I did when I had an afternoon off while Q was at day care. While Chris was handling bedtime, I was a whirlwind in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner and making both the glaze and the frosting, as well as walking the dog. Before Q was born, I might have made dinner clean up, a dog walk and a small amount of cooking take all evening, but now it is imperative to be efficient, so I can maximize my time to relax or my time to study. There is time to do everything, though maybe not everyday, as long as some careful time management is employed.

Sometimes you cannot sleep

So, instead of knitting or cleaning or making more ice cream, I will leave you with our celebration of Weird Al Yankovic's new album, Mandatory Fun.

Poor guy, born to such a Tacky family!

Sunday is National Ice Cream Day, and this year it is definitely a celebration of David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. You would think I had made all of the flavors already, but no. This year is the year I finally make the avocado and olive oil ice creams!

Finishing sweaters

I finished a second item in the beginning of June. Q needs replacement sweaters, because either they are shrinking or he is growing (I know which one it is) and the ones I made for him no longer fit his frame.

This one is the Offset Wraplan. I striped this with a random white yarn and all of the non-fingering yellow yarns I had in my stash. I mean it, there are at least two and more likely three different yellow yarns in there. A great stashbusting project.

Of course, the sweater doesn't fit him now. It is 12 month sized, and he has a few more months to go before I expect to be putting it on him on a regular basis.

One sweater down, and I still have the sweater I started at Squam left to go (also a 12 month sweater, but it is being knit on the 18 month plan). Not too bad for our little boy!

In June, I also made a couple of cakes. One of which didn't go quite so well. I tried to make the plum kuchen from Smitten Kitchen with cherries, but I didn't get the beautiful rise I got when I made it the first time. I will have to try again, because I love that cake.

I also made in June the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake that Smitten Kitchen has on her site from the Sky High cookbook. I loved making that cake so much that I borrowed the cookbook from the library and hope to try another recipe or two from there!

Of course, now it is July, and soon it will be National Ice Cream Day. I have a staycation where I will hopefully make a ton of ice cream, knit a bunch on a shawl for Camp Loopy, and read a book. A most vacation-y of stay at home vacations.

Getting back in the swing of things

People never tell you when you have kids that your thoughts of having a schedule mostly go out the window.

There are lots of things they don't tell you, and because every family is different sometimes it is because they didn't know either. Only in the past month or two as Q has gotten more interested in play (crawling and cruising) have I gotten back in the swing of knitting.

I had this idea that I would be able to make 14 things in 2014, and it is true. I might be able to do that. As long as they are small.

Small like these.

These leggings are just simple tubes with some ribbing made out of yarn that I bought for a shrug (the three color one from Loop-D-Loop). They need a bit of elastic to hold them up, but otherwise they work.

Now, I need to figure out what other things I've finished so far this year, and see if I can get all the way to 14 items!

[10 Tuesday] Bands!

This picture has nothing to do with today's 10 for Tuesday topic. I just love my little boy.

So, this week's 10 for Tuesday is 10 Bands or Individuals you've seen in concert.

1. It's hard to beat this one for awesomeness. When I was in college, someone was selling an extra ticket and I got to see Pink Floyd at Foxboro Stadium (when it was still called Foxboro). I was 12th row center stage. My ticket was under $50, and someone I knew had a ticket for later in the series and was in nosebleed seats. It was awesome.

2. I've seen Rush in concert in Providence. This was one of those situations where I had an internet friend who liked many of the same things I did. So, we would get together and play too many games of Mortal Kombat and go to concerts like Rush. That was nosebleed seats for me.

3. Weird Al. In Lowell. Any concert where it is aOK to get up, sing along, and dance your fool heart out is wonderful!

4. Marillion at the Somerville Theater. This is one of those weird situations where you've listened to the music but have no idea what the musicians look like. I almost left after the opening act, because I didn't know it was the opening act. Whoops! I did stick around, and got to listen to many wonderful songs.

5. Lollapalooza 1996. Once again a group of friend went to Lollapalooza, and I got to go too. The only groups I really knew at this were Metallica and Soundgarden. On the day we went, I also listened to Ben Folds Five and Psychotica. It was super hot, and I was sort of gothed out in a black body suit with fishnet mesh shoulders. Needless to say, I got a fishnet mesh sunburn that faded out and lasted all summer long.

6. Dream Theater and Blink Crotch. Dream Theater was at the Bank of America Pavillion and had two opening bands. One of those bands involved the lead singer standing with his legs straddling the blinking light from the drum kit. The opening bands were mostly forgettable (the other opening band had a lead singer who looked kind of like Bruce Banner).

7. Distant Worlds. Chocobo music and other Final Fantasy music. It was pretty awesome!

8. Carmen in Concert. One of my friends was in the chorus for this, so I saw it when the MIT group put it on a gazillion years ago.

9. Tiffany. I saw this with one of my friends at the Fleet Center (or whatever they were calling it at the time.. you know, where the Bruins play). It was shortly after I had knee surgery, so I was either just off crutches or was still on crutches with an air cast thingie. I was afraid that if I fell down that I would roll all the way down to the bottom. Splat!

Beyond that, I have been part of a lot of musical theater and now choirs (UU Church of Lexington right now). So, I have done concerts. The most recent one was this past weekend at the local farmer's market, where we sang to support Faith Feeds. 

Singing with the church is awesome, because they do Music Sundays. Music was always one of my favorite things about church from when I went when I was a little kid, so being part of such a musical congregation is wonderful! This past Sunday we sang Kokomo and the Famine Song in addition to the more traditional spirituals and hymns.

If you add musicals I've seen, the list gets a lot longer. I've seen Les Mis, Into the Woods, Miss Saigon, Moving Out, and a few others. I've also seen a few plays and operas on the Boston Common. But frankly, I haven't seen a concert since seeing Dream Theater a few years ago. It's just not something I do on a regular basis.

[10 Tuesday] Donut-topia

I've been trying to find a replacement for Donut King (goodness I loved that place). Doughnuts don't appear to be as big a thing here as they were in New England. On the other hand, it is a lot easier to find a milk shake here. Go figure.

This week's 10 for Tuesday is 10 things you did this weekend.

1. The first thing was driving practice.

2. The second thing was going to North Lime for doughnuts. I didn't get one this time around, because the special wasn't something I was interested in (see doughnut with a dinosaur shaped chicken nugget). Instead I had a peanut butter mocha. It is one of the better coffee drinks I've had, so it certainly isn't like I was deprived. And driving practice is much easier if you are going somewhere you want to go.

3. Gaming. I got to trip things and have it work. Fixing my character to make him more playable was totally worth it.

4. Walking the dog. There was a lot of walking in general.

5. Going to a Parent's meet up. We walked around the arboretum, which was pretty nice. We didn't see the huge leaves that were around the hospital, so we still don't know which plants those are.

6. Got my nails and toes done. The place was pretty nice, and there were massaging chairs.

7. Bruised my back... too much massaging chair.

8. Watched a video about sectioning an orange, and then sectioned a few less than stellar oranges. Huzzah!

9. Got a smidge of knitting in. Want to finish the sweater this week (before camp loopy starts), so I need to move from a smidge of knitting to a whack of knitting. 

10. Cleaned the kitchen. There is still more kitchen to clean, but the floor is washed and one counter is completely clean. Hopefully I will have enough time to make the strawberry summer cake from Smitten Kitchen.

Bonus! 11. My husband put together a list of all of the perishable fruits and veggies, so I could more easily make sure they all got used during the course of the week. Last night that meant using the salad greens and all of the oranges. This morning, it meant making sure that an apple went into my lunch box. It is so much easier to eat healthily if you know what you have!

Camp Loopy!

Camp Loopy is starting soon! This is the time of year where I buy yarn pretty much every month, and I actually finish things.

The first project is 400 yards and it has to remind you of a character or scene or anything from a favorite book, movie or TV show. I know exactly what I want to make. 

Last year when I was still in Boston, I would go to Gather Here each knit night, and one of the local knitters was doing Sock Madness. She made these socks (rav link) and they were awesome. They looked fun to wear, and they looked fun to make. And better yet, they remind me of something I would think Elizabeth Bennet would wear.

Fun to make has changed a lot in the past 6+ months. Now fun to make means simple, easy to put down, and easy to remember my place. It does mean that I've been doing a lot of stripes, very little patterning, almost no shaping. It will be nice to take a bit of time over the summer to try and move back to more complex patterns.