Mmmm, destruction....

Computer is happily re-assembled in my room, though I've managed to misplace a camera cable again. Clever rodent. Nope, haven't finished the raglan, though I did start and finish a different sweater.

This is, more or less, the infamous Five Hour Baby Sweater. Time involved? Started on Saturday and finished today, but on the number of hours I haven't the foggiest. Computer knitting can't be timed well.



What size this is and who it's for - good questions. Glad I asked. Umm....

In baby news totally unrelating to knitting news, did I mention my neighbor is a grandma? She came over this morning to show off her grandbaby, who was just let out of the hospital last week. Kidlet wasn't due until next month but turned out to be an early Christmas present for his mama. Wow, is he tiny; three pounds at birth... and cute. Cuter than Vicki Howell. Really cute.


Mystery Fair Isle Thing returns to haunt me! I sliced off the bottom (green&yellow) wonky part back to the start of the blue&yellow pattern, which is actually where I originally cast on. Picked up the stitches again... perhaps this time I'll decrease at the proper rate and it will turn out closer to flat.



What prompted such wanton destruction of a formerly finished object? Seems to be going around.



On the right is the window the Chevy crashed into. On the left is the living room; yep, Mom & I tore down most of the wall yesterday. We currently have a nefarious plan to put the panel on the living room side back up so that when Dad returns later this week, it's not *too* obvious that the wall was (halfway) torn down. Stay tuned for how that works out! (Next month.)

Computer carnage

moved

Dancing and dancing all night to that Blue Carioca....

(Mmm, Mike Nesmith....)

One of November's "Help, I'm stuck in Okieland and need to knit something!" projects was this failed attempt at a scarf. Note to self: bias knit does not block exactly the same as straight knitting. Too narrow. Sunday I uncovered the rest of that yarn; I'd used exactly half of what I had for the scarf. Hmm, tidy little slip-stitch edge there... I googled for a couple minutes looking for a good knitted-on edging until I realised that printing it would be too much of a hassle anyway. (Score one for lazybutts.) The obscenely simple garter stitch pattern I used works well, so nyah.



Not declaring it "finished" yet... might be another two months until I add to it again. Stay tuned.


Mystery Tank #2 Lives Again now has both arms sewn on, though neither are long enough yet. Maybe I won't finish it until its first birthday in May.


Saturday afternoon I cast on for Cozy. The guess for how many more stitches I'd need to make it a bit wider and to compensate for using sportweight cotton was *way* off. Frogged, tried again.



Monday night at the SnB was quite crowded. Notable new faces included... well, I don't know their names. One was a left-handed crocheter who carried her project in a SETHSA bag. Whoever she is, I love her. Another new person was a needle tatter! Having not watched a needle tatter in action before, I was mesmerised. She suggested that rather than buying tatting needles to use doll making needles but warned that the point are sharp... she ain't just kidding. I think my shuttles are safer... and needle tatting is more dangerous than needle felting. Owwwwwwwww.


Finally... progress on the raglan.


At the elbow I figured it'd be tidier to do both arms at the same time. Attempting to do this in the round was failing miserably; I've got about two inches more to do before I can sew them up.
If that picture isn't enough for y'all... which it should be, but in the odd chance it ain't...
Front - Left sleeve - Right sleeve - Back

Off to finish the raglan's sleeves....

Happy Most Depressing Day of the Year!!

(Gone!)

On a morning from a Bogart movie in a country where they turn back time....

moved

Someone miss the memo? We're supposed to be "subtropical".

Shoo, cold weather!

Well, it's been a month since the Chevy graced this house with its presence. Over the weekend we spent some time re-tidying the front of the house... um, I take it this is a sign it'll be a few weeks yet until it's repaired. Various bits of our front window and the truck's headlight are being collected & shrined by Mom for some sinister intention yet unknown to me. She also took the bent window screen and nailed it to the plywood. It and the "No Parking" sign, now attatched with duct tape, make quite the statement.

Um, there's a hole in my sock. Here I've poked my needles through what decent stitches I could find...



But nothing since then as I'm actually not sure that it's worth fixing. Not that I'm a lazybutt or anything, but it's more fun to make socks from wool and needle felt patches onto the holes. About needle felting, I've got some other oddiddiddities about that to post later this week.

Par-tay! Hotknits is back! Let's all buy yarn in celebration.

The sweater isn't finished, Joeli, so nyah. No progress on one sleeve; the other is past the elbow. The body is... I have no idea. Hmm.

In other strange news, ever wondered if you tape together a bunch of yarn labels? Something like this -



Oooh, with a wonky flash, tape can be shiny. Shiny....
Anyways, I'd hoarded a bunch of yarn labels two summers ago for this intention. Quite a few more recent additions have worked their way into the pile, but it's mainly Red Heart.
As great as yarn labels can be, I still have a better sign next to it. Its awesomeness cannot be contained within an inline picture, so y'all will have to jump through my hoops to see it.
Maybe those weren't hoops and it's not that awesome. Still, humour me, will ya?

The Delayed Comment award goes to Alex for his commenting on a post from last September. Curses for reminding me that I have knit neither the watermelon hat nor the dangling bunny hat. Über-curses for provoking me to pine for the beach yet again.

From summer 2002, a picture I took of Surfside Beach -



So the sand isn't pristine white like at Pensacola. The ocean isn't exactly the prettiest or cleanest at this point, mainly because the Brazos River dumps into the Gulf a couple miles from there. What it has that places like Pensacola or Galveston don't - quiet. Even on a weekend in summer not many people loiter there - most head several miles further south to the the county park at Quintana. But at what once Velasco, other than a smattering of houses, it's just beach. Perhaps a few fisherdudes in the distance, and always shrimp boats on the horizon, but the beach itself is populated by little more than mosquitos. From how peaceful it naturally is there, one might never have guessed, but way back when Dick Clark was in high school, a battle relating to Texas independence was fought there. Mmm, history.

So is it summer yet? Almost summer? Not Quite Summer? Summer Summer? Super Summer? Still Summer? Any of the variations on that season, I'll take it... so long as it's not cold.

Dear Winter: GO AWAY.

moved

Mmm, Krystal burgers....

Yesterday I visited two yarn shops I'd not been to before. (On the handy-dandy map, #3 and #5.)

First up was Merribee's, way up by 249. Surprisingly tricky to find, perhaps as a foreboding sign. Everything did have prices, but it took a bit of scavenging to find it. The place was large and open with a rather conflicted selection. Are they marketing to one specific (strange) group, or trying to cover just a few bases? Far too much novelty yarn with only a few of the staples; I suppose someday I should finally accept that this is standard for all yarn shops.

Yarns did not live in any one cubbyhole but rather were scattered among the nearest three or four from their home base. In many parts they had partial bags of yarn with only three or four hanks or balls still swimming in the bag. The book and magazine racks had no visible order to them. Am I being too demanding for expecting logic and order in a craft shop? Perhaps she has cruel customers who drive disorder into every corner of the store by putting hanks back in the wrong places? But it was too untidy to be the actions of just one day. I keep trying to think of something...
(Edit the next week: It's come to my attention that I was flat-out wrong. Well, y'all can at least *pretend* to be surprised. Turns out that the owner was out of the country for much of December and she's still working on cleaning up after the part-time employees who ran the store for that time. This changes my likelihood of returning from "probably not" to "hopefully in a few months when I have money again".)

Best of all, there's a KRYSTAL up there! A Krystal!!! Oh, how I love Krystal. And they're in Houston now. Mmmm, Krystal. Not that I ate something like 15 Krystal burgers yesterday....


Then we went by Yarns 2 Ewe; this place is called the best in Houston for very good reason. They seem to have everything. Or perhaps they actually do have everything? Either way, it's a great place. Very friendly, though the owner and the other employee just leaving as I arrived both have time management issues. They'd leave three people at the counter waiting to purchase their yarn while showing another person around. They proclaim to have the swift & winder as "a courtesy" , then take remarkably long to wind the yarn. I asked if they'd let me do it; yes, but every few minutes it would have to be paused to let a person pass by since the swift was in so awkward a place. Amazingly enough, I pine for Luff's. I know, amazing that I'd want to be in Oklahoma again, but to be at Luff's again would almost be worth it. Good place, that.

I did spring for some Plymouth Encore DK in colour... green.

I'm a sucker for sale yarns. It's intended to turn into a birthday present for a friend in YankeeLand; what all, I don't know. Hat? Mittens? Both? Let's see how much time and motivation I have. With 600 yards I should have enough. (If not, I didn't intend to give her that much, anyway.)


The observant may have noticed new links to the right. These are more for my use than yours, so nyah. And yes, I've started on the much-famed incredibly long pattern title.
Okay, guess what colours I like.

And I've got three more different yarns in very similar shades! Eeep. But intarsia in the round is actually very fun and braining to do. Tangle-prone, but fun, and the colours are coming out better than plannned. (Not that my plan was too swooft to begin with.) Picture coming next entry, I believe.

Catssessess

Tomorrow Brotherling leaves us again. Par-tay! Back to "teh Uh"... a couple of calamities have occurred at or around the University of Houston in the past month. In December, there was a fatal shootout at the HEB Pantry where Brotherling regularly shops for somewhat edible items. Hmm. I wonder if they've spackled over the bullet holes yet.
Then today was some sort of chemical spill at UH's chem building. Mmm, Hazmat....
Hopefully it won't be quite as eventful there after Brotherling's return - his creative way of telling about such things... oy.

So, a couple pictures. Still nothing new on the knitting front; this here cat is needle felted. I'd started her right after Christmas but she's rather camera shy. (Not very photogenic, either.) Mom has glommed onto her and named her "Cheeto", in honour of her limbs.



In other cat news... new stray has been hanging around. I wonder how long until he/she has a name....



(Two weeks later, in a fit of fear that family would track down this blog, half the entry is removed. Nyah.)

More re-runs

At the Knitty Coffeeshop I keep reading of great finds at thrift shops of yarn or wool sweaters. Apparently they haven't trolled the thriftshops around here; in the Houston area, wool is nearabouts nonexistent. I've found a few, though. One is slowly being transformed into a bag. No "before" pictures; it was a pretty basic cardigan with frightful designs.





Though not visible in those pictures, those pieces are actually stuck together now; a piece from the upper back forms the bag bottom. The sleeves will be become the sides someday; the plan is also to make the bag taller. What I'll use for that I don't know yet. Perhaps I'll butcher the other sweater for such a nefarious purpose.

In other news, there is no other news. Well, I actually have a post relating to the ReKAL - is that news? Or here's real news - Joeli has returned! I guess I'm back to work on MT#2's second sleeve....

Reruns

moved

... goin' where the weather suits my clothes...

Fritty flicks her tail and purrs at y'all's adoration! Now she requests somebody scratches her leg.

Jo, Urban Pagan, and Helen - I can't believe y'all think there's nothing wrong with the sock. It's butt-ugly - and I ain't talking the tush variety of butt - I mean Richard Simmon's butt, butt-ugly. The colours themselves are fine, but the inconsistent number of rows per stripe makes it look as if the machine was intoxicated at the time. It's wretched! But I'm too far into it to frog... and I want my #1s back... so I just hope there's enough yarn to finish it.

In other news, I'm thrilled that Sci-Fi is setting back the Stargates by an hour; now I can watch Monk the first time around instead of waiting for a re-run. Not that certain parts of Monk's personality are close to mine. At least I don't have any particular obsession with cleaning... if I had my way, I'd vacuum my room only once every six months. Last night was one of those times; finally blocked a couple things.

Mystery Shawl #2: Used to look like this... now closer to this....



Hey, don't you be hasslin' me about how few pins I used. Judging by my repeated abuse of Mystery Shawl #1, it'll be fine. (Being brought to Okieland constitutes one of the most cruel things done to my knitting.)

Also pinned out part of Mystery Shawl #3. Doesn't look much different, but it feels and drapes better. Next time I pin it out I won't stretch it as much; right now it's about 22" wide, but I think the diamonds would be happier at 18". Slow going, though. Being my migrating project, it doesn't get much work done...

Another contractor coming by today to say how much damage he thinks there is. This guy is one the insurance company is fond of; Dad claims the estimate will be pretty much same as what the other local contractor said, while Mom suspects there's something sinister afoot and this one will differ quite a bit. We'll see.

While working on this entry I realised that every active project here (5) is without the aid of a printed pattern. Sock, sleeve, MS#3, Green Thing, Secret Gift Project I Can't Talk About... cool. (And don't ask what SGPICTA is, okay?)

Why won't that dishwasher empty itself?

Much to y'all's chagrin, I continue my endeavor to post shorter entries and more often than twice a week...

Today the cables for the other battery-munching digital camera were rescued from their former home. Drunk driver-induced scrapes are visible on parts of these cables, prompting concern that being slid along the wall with a table shoved against them caused internal damage. This evening I tested the cables; irksomely enough, they still work! Man, I hate this camera. It devours batteries. Picture quality is occasionally good, but it eats batteries as if they were corn chips! I'd hoped that the cables were damaged, rendering the camera useless, and we'd have an excuse to buy a spiffy new camera, but nope.

Actually, with my new computer setup and with the aid of the camera's power adapter thingamajig, I can take pictures of anything within a few feet from the computer and not have to deal with batteries at all... so on with the pictures.

Sock-in-progress. I detest the manner in which it stripes... but the skein looked so innocent! If you look at the cuff you might notice that for the first 20 rounds, the stripes were promising. Then all hell breaks loose! Stripe anarchy in action, people. This is not a good thing.



Picture taken in such a fashion out of curiosity... how many active readers will recognise, without the aid of Google, what album that is... unfortunately I can't promise yarn for a correct answer, as Zib has done with that sinister global map. What does Central America, southern Africa, and eastern Europe have in common with either Greenland or New Zealand?? The answer "Nobody cares about any of them" was promising until I noticed that Japan was in the same group. Then again....
Ooh, on the subject of New Zealand, an odd Google search came up with a rather disturbing image...

Check it out, if you dare.

Teehee. Sheepies in fishnets.

Too horrible to post inline... Avert your eyes! 'Tis a crocheted sock. Several times it's attempted to crawlout of the frog pond, but soon it will DIE.

Frit demanded public adoration, so here again is Her Highness. Ain't Fritty gorgeous?

He's a feeling arranger and a changer of the ways he talks....

(Current music: "The Loner" - Steve Stills)

The status of my usual computer... somewhat okay! Sorry, Packie, but a Pentium 3 is slightly faster than a 486. So for now I'm back to the Compaq... though now both CD drives are dead. Thanks, Chevy; I wanted to listen to LPs anyway. Pfft.

About a dozen things at the SnB this evening majorly annoyed me. I had a lengthy post on this typed out, but then realised it might be properly percieved as too whiney. The next option was a diatribe on the newest episode of "Knitty Gritty", but again, what I was typing was coming out too cranky. Perhaps I am feeling grinch-like today - and yesterday! These tales may or may not be recounted some other day I'm feeling friendly.

Somewhat finished object: Mystery Fair Isle Thing. For pictures check out my post at Knittyboard.
Now that I have access to a camera on my own terms, I hope to update with images more consistently. (Yeah, right.) Maybe when I'm awake. For now, the only image available is of my new computer set-up. All the furniture in this picture used to live elsewhere but has since migrated to my room. I now have next to no floor space on which to walk. Yay.



And the Sega still works! Yay! Though I haven't used it in over a year, somehow my Sonic 3 & Knuckles saved games stuck around. Currently working on a way to rig it up to the computer and get screetshots of the Sega... or maybe I'll just take pictures of my knitting.
Not tonight.

... where did I leave that new calendar?

Really, I *did* buy a 2005 calendar, but it's since been buried under piles of things which formerly lived in the computer room.

New layout for the new year. Well, slightly new. Colours and images will be further tweaked when I have more regular access to a decent computer - my Packie can't get any better than 256 colours. Not so good for web design. But this actually is readable in everything from 800x600 to 1400x1050 - that's an improvement over the last. I think.

As I can only check it out in IE 6 (yes it runs on a 486), I have no idea how this looks in Opera, Netscape, Mozilla, or other browsers which don't seem to like 11 year old computers. If it acts screwy on your system, no matter how obscure, tell me and I'll fix it....