Monkeying Around

I finally have a second sock monkey, this one for myself:

A Tale Of Two Calendars

Just over two weeks ago, I got a phone call. It was a courier, explaining he couldn't get in my building to deliver a package. A package? I didn't order anything... who sent me something to my old address?

I let him know my new address, and how much longer I'd be home.

Package received, I opened it up. It was a Crochet-A-Day calendar. Odd... I didn't remember submitting any crochet patterns. From the invoice, it didn't look like something a friend had sent me. I went through the whole calendar, but couldn't find a pattern by me. Then I had a vague recollection of submitting a knitting pattern. Sure enough, when I looked up the accepted patterns on the knitting calendar, I found mine.

I e-mailed the publisher to tell them they sent the wrong calendar, and that I had moved. They said to keep the crochet calendar as a gift, and that they'd get a knitting one out to me.

A surprisingly brief period of time later, I came home to a message on my answering machine: DHL wasn't able to deliver a package, and could I call to make alternate arrangements. Hmmm... I hadn't seen any "missed delivery" slips...

I call. They had my old address. I give them my new address, and put a note on the door that they are authorized to leave the package.

Next day: nothing.

Day after: nothing. I call again, checking the address. "It can take 24 hours." "It's been 48!" "Uh... 24 to 48. It should come tomorrow!"

Day after that: phone call, they can't get in my building. "I already called to say I had moved, and gave the new address!!!" "Sorry, that wasn't written on the package." (Uh, maybe you should check the computer? They probably couldn't write it on the package because you hadn't brought it back in!) *sigh*

Get home tonight: package! Come inside: phone message: "could you leave a signed note so we can deliver your package" ?!?!?!!!

Since I have my package, I decided not to return the call.

My pattern is May 27 - 30. Enjoy! :)

Sock Monkey

I knit one of these several years ago for a friend. I meant to knit a second one for myself, but didn't get around to it until now.

I was knitting on him this morning on the bus, when two ladies got on and admired him. Then the inevitable: "You could totally sell those!"
Me: "I'd have to charge a lot to make it worth my while."
Them: "No, you can actually charge quite a high price!"
etc.
Finally, I do a bit of mental math, based on how long I think I've already spent, how much is left, and at what hourly wage it *might* be worth my while to knit them for profit.
Me: "I'd probably have to charge something like $80 for it to be worth my time."
Them: "Oh. Um. ...but I guess you're using really nice yarn..."
I didn't tell them that I hadn't bothered to factor in the yarn, since it doesn't use much. Or the fact that the pattern might not allow sales for profit. They did stop with the "you could sell those" conversation, though.

(Next time someone suggests I sell the socks I make, I'll let them know they'd be $350. To those I give socks to: "You're welcome. *You* are worth my time.")

Shower Gift

My stepbrother and his fiancée received a whole bunch of candy-apple red Kitchenaid appliances (mixers, blenders, etc), so I made a pair of hand towels and felted potholders to match:

I like them. :) (The fiancée seemed to like them too.)

The buttons are from my stash (I actually found my main button stash in the mountain of boxes!)... I had a choice of matching buttons that didn't work as well, or buttons that went well with the grey yarn. Since they won't both be out at the same time, I went for the latter. (Apparently I was silly for pointing that out at the shower. Whoops.)

Clapotis

I knit a sock yarn clapotis scarf for my mom:

(She can sometimes be a bit of a ham. ;) ) I managed to miss mother's day *and* her birthday... but I gave it to her now anyway.

Ironic: I put blocking wires (stainless steel welding rods) on my Christmas/birthday wishlist a number of years ago, once I found affordable options. (Again, ironically, the stainless steel welding rods ended up coming to the same price as KnitPicks blocking wires... oh well... at least they weren't $60, or whatever the previous options I knew about were.) Either last Christmas or the Christmas before, I finally received a set, but then didn't finish something that needed blocking wires again until this clapotis. However, due to the move I couldn't *find* the dang things... until, of course, *after* I blocked and gave the scarf to my mom. *sigh*

Mom likes it. :) (And she will have it to wear in the fall, which she wouldn't, if I had waited until Christmas.)

New Mittens

Another thing I'm feeling unreasonably pleased about:


This pair of mittens I just finished. Crochet top, knit ribbed cuffs. These are now the light mittens that live in my spring/fall/rain jacket, for those cool, would-be-nice-to-be-wearing-mittens days. (My old pair is probably around ten years old now, and is getting thin. I've already patched them once using yarn that I begged off someone with some in their stash. I feel guilty about begging for more. They're pre- "save leftovers for patching" mittens.)

Um...

...I think I still have a problem... wtf?

Whoops

I could have sworn I was careful not to put that on the hot element...

At least wool just smolders, rather than bursting into flames. (It's still functional too... just with more, um, "decorative" elements than before.)

Yep, these are different sizes:

I knit the previous pair on the recommended size needles, but was having trouble getting gauge. So, for this pair, I did the first (right side) mitten on needles two sizes smaller (I didn't have one size smaller), and it came out nicely. However, as I was finishing up the top, I put the needles in the jar beside my chair as they came out. The "correct" size needles were in the bag... and so, when I went to start the second mitten a day or two later... yep. I used the wrong needles. I noticed the size difference when I went to add the thumbs, but figured I had just not been careful about keeping a tight gauge on the second mitten (having completely forgotten about going down a needle size). It was only later, when I noticed the dpns in the jar, and had a recent recollection of using them, that I remembered what happened.

Yeah, I'm going to rip and reknit the bigger mitten. (It even has some of the ends woven in!)

Whoops

I keep thinking I'm good at math, and then I do something like this:

This is a second pair of "Double Mittens with Angora Lining". I'm not fond of after-thought thumbs (buttonhole thumbs? ...whatever they're called), so this time I decided to modify the pattern to have a thumb gusset. I looked up how many stitches wide the afterthought thumb was, then calculated how many increase rounds I'd need, and thus where I needed to start the gusset.

I reached the point you can see in the photo, when it dawned on me: I had calculated how to get enough increases for the width (13 stitches), not the full circumference (26 stitches).

Whoopsie!

Now I'm trying to figure out what my options are... besides ripping back half of what I've knit, of course. *sigh*

Tag, I'm Back!

(...Opposite side is front!)

I've been having trouble determining front from back on my black, seamless bouclé sweater. So I added a tag.

Apparently not straight... but then who is going to see it? I took a straw poll of my knitting group, and we decided I didn't care that it was crooked.

The tag is a bit of cute grosgrain ribbon left over from making pattern magnets. :)

Beret's Blocked

One for me:

One for my grandma:

Julekuler

I knit my first Julekuler (Arne & Carlos Christmas ornament):




Of course, since I didn't check the gauge before going yarn shopping, this ended up rather large... about the size of one of those large navel oranges or a grapefruit.

I'm going to try the same yarn on smaller needles to see how it looks.

Crafty Stuff

The other night I whipped up a potholder out of some leftover Malabrigo to see how it felts. (It seems like sacrilege to felt Malabrigo. However, I have ideas for a Christmas present... should I finish it in time.)

I tossed it in with two loads of laundry yesterday (I forgot to leave it in with the third), and it definitely still needs more felting. Results to come.

I also finished a beret for me out of Royal Alpaca:

(I haven't blocked it yet.) It's the Meret, but with my "own" lace pattern (modified from a Barbara Walker edging), more rows, and a nub at the top. So I guess it's just the stitch count and the brim that's from Meret. But it's not the regular Meret brim, it's the alternate one listed that knit-along knitters used. So I guess it's not really a Meret, is it? Whatever it is, it's done (except for blocking), fits, and should keep my head warm in a (hopefully) non-hair-squishing way.

Now that the needles from my beret are free, I've started a present for my grandma.

I'm heading over to my mom's for Thanksgiving soon. I made the cranberry sauce.

Felted Lamp Shade

darklamp

Wow!

Trökni

Oh, look, I'm making them in pink (well, coral) too:

I've made four yellow, and am on my third pink one. (I'm keeping one of each, the rest are gifts.)

I like that I was able to find matching buttons in my stash. :)

Stitch Markers

*squeeeee*!

And That's The Kind Of Day It's Been

Today was oppressively hot and humid.

I started off the day with a dentist appointment. (Just a bi-yearly cleaning.)

Approaching the dentist's office, I realized that it was going to be a hot ride to the university, made more uncomfortable by the fact that I wouldn't be allowed to drink anything until a half hour after my fluoride treatment. (My dentist is the type that still gives them to adults. Some friends say their dentists say it's unnecessary and/or pointless, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.)

The cleaning went smoothly... well, as smoothly as it ever does. There's an occasional accidental poke with something sharp, and the x-ray thing hurt my gums as always, but my teeth are all holding up to the level of care I've been giving them.

Normally I just get a toothbrush to take home. At the end of this visit, I got a whole goody bag:

Toothbrush (a different brand than usual), plane-friendly-sized toothpaste (the kind I'm using!), and a tiny spool of floss. I flashed back to being a six-year-old coming home from a birthday party.

The party stopped when I got back to the front desk. When the receptionist tried to run my insurance, it said it had been cancelled. WTF!?!??!!!!! I *know* I'm not the only person who gets re-hired every four months... *why* can't the university remember to renew my insurance each time!?!??? Last summer it took something like two *months* after I discovered the problem to get my supplemental health reinstated (I don't *care* if everyone is going on vacations, make sure *someone* is doing the effing job!), and I had this same nonsense the last time I was at the dentist! I was just looking at my pay stubs yesterday, and I was being deducted for the health premiums. I was *peeved*.

I asked the receptionist if there was a phone I could use, so that I could talk to my benefits person, and have her talk to the receptionist so that she knew what to do. My phone call rang then went to voicemail. (Grrr.) It said to press zero if you wanted to be helped right away (gee, that's why I'm *calling*), and so I did. I got put on hold. (Grrr.) Finally she said that my benefits person would talk to me. (She's *there*?!?? Why didn't she pick up the phone?!?!?!!!) Apparently, even though my supplemental health was hooked up properly, the dental coverage was separate, and *wasn't* set up! (The term started at the beginning of May. They had *two* months to get me set up!)

I had the benefits lady talk to the receptionist, the receptionist is going to submit a paper form next week, and she'll contact me if there's still something I owe after that. (I'm only covered 50%, but then there's the supplemental, and it's all just confusing.) *sigh*

On the way from the dentist's office to the bus stop, I found a forgotten Blackberry. I stood there for a minute, wondering how best to get it back to it's owner. (The device was password protected, so my usual technique of looking for an entry labelled "home" or "mom" wasn't going to work.) Luckily, the owner realized she had left it behind, and came rushing back. (She didn't seem that interested in my suggestion that she put contact information on the back of the device. Whatever.)

The first bus to work was air conditioned. Ahhh! There was a longish wait downtown, where I tried to stand in the shade of the lamp post. (I could also have pulled out my umbrella for shade, but it was rather gusty.) The second bus wasn't air conditioned. Luckily by then I was allowed to drink my water. Unfortunately, I realized I had already drunk over half on the way to the dentist, and had very little left. (Plus it was warm by then... much less satisfying.)

I made it to the university by half way through what should have been knitting lunch... but there were no knitters. I guess something came up. (We're a pretty small group.)

Work was slow this afternoon. I remembered some other questions I had for the benefits lady, and so e-mailed her around 4:00. Looks like she stared her weekend early, because she didn't reply. (Did I mention I dislike my benefits lady?)

The first bus home was also air conditioned. Yay! (In fact, I decided to catch a different one than I intended simply because it was air conditioned.)

They hadn't yet closed Osborne for the Canada day preparations by the time we got there, so traffic was better than it might have been.

Reaching the Village, I saw that the farmer's market had started up again for the season. I hopped off the bus and bought some local honey (I've been hoping to run into that guy before my supply ran out again) and some garlic scapes. Mmmm!

When I was done shopping, a bus arrived quickly. However, it was most definitely *not* air conditioned. Although it would have taken me home, I decided to hop off and visit Wolseley Wool, which was having a customer appreciation night. (I had initially intended to go, but had been wavering due to the oppressive heat and humidity, which was worse than earlier. WW isn't very close to bus routes... it's not too far, but not as close as you'd like when Winnipeg gets to either end of its temperature extremes.)

WW had punch with ice! I drank some punch, ate a few nibblies, petted the yarn, and bought some yarn to make gifts. Then I went back out into the horrible heat.

In addition to not being air conditioned, the next (and final) bus was packed like sardines. By the time I was home, I was *drenched*. The cool blast of air that greeted me when I opened my apartment door was heavenly, as was the cool shower.

I love my AC! Looking at the weather website, today's temperature peaked at 34 C (humidex 43 C)... I could tell that it wasn't quite as bad as the worst days in NC, but it was still bleeping hot.

And that is the kind of day it's been.

Trökni Version 2

I have a backlog of posts to get to... I may skip some. This is actually my third yellow handtowel. I used a different ribbing pattern for this one. To get this pattern, use the Tröckni pattern with the following changes:

Row 5 (ws): p2, (k2, p1) four times, k2, p2 | p2, (k2, p1) six times, k2, p2 | p2, (k2, p1) four times, k2, p2
Row 6 (rs): k1, ssk, (p1, k1, p1) four times, k2tog, k1 | k1, ssk, (p1, k1, p1) six times, k2tog, k1 | k1, ssk, (p1, k1, p1) four times, k2tog, k1

Basically, the knit/purl pattern, from the right side, before any decreases, looks like:
vv--v--v--v--v--vv | vv--v--v--v--v--v--v--vv | vv--v--v--v--v--vv

Air Conditioning

I got my AC installed this weekend, with help from my uncles. Of course, this means it cooled off drastically outside, and so now my apartment is delightfully cool without them. :)

On the bright side, the cool weather means I spotted this awesome sweater on the bus this morning:


Looks like a handknit out of white buffalo, or maybe Lopi. (Given the design, it's probably Lopi.) Although I'm spinning my yarn finer, I want to adapt this pattern for my yarn from Princess. (That reminds me... I need to writ the retreat post!)

The benefit of being able to identify yarns... this Lopi pattern, #156 (Ravelry link) looks to be *almost* the pattern. The one I saw was actually a cardigan, has a fancier collar, and a few minor differences in the pattern. I wonder if the knitter made the modifications, or if Lopi has another pattern?

Yeppers, Lopi #156! (Note: PDF link.)

Hot

One lining done, one to go.

It's not a funny shape, but the loose knit stretches different ways.

From pushing in the lining and trying it on for fit, it seems insanely hot, as expected. Of course, the fact that it's 27 C in my apartment could be affecting my perception. I'll let you know for sure next winter.

Fit seems a bit snug & short... I may try to block them a bit larger.