The JKC Project

It's Done!

2005-07-10T09:55:00.000-04:00

I did it - finally! I moved to Wordpress. Check out my new digs, and a post (with pictures!) at: Yarnish

Rock On!

2005-07-08T20:10:00.000-04:00

Lots has happened here at the Project. A short week, and some fabulous packages courtesy of the USPS. First off, the Laptop arrived Tuesday. This has huge ramifications for the Project, mainly I will now be able to: 1) Post Regularly. No more sneaking around at work, trying to act like I'm writing an email. 2) Leave Comments Regularly. See above about sneaking around, Bloglines is easy enough to read, but it's hard to actually visit your sites and truly admire your pictures and have the leisure to drop in and say hello. This is all going to change. 3) Speaking of pictures... I'll be able to Post Pictures. Since going to work for The Man, there's no bringing the camera into work and uploading them, etc. BUT, now, I'm at home, I have my own computer to save pictures on, and I might even get cool photo editing software to really have some fun... These are all good things for the Project, don't you think? I've been giddy all week. Oh, and this post is brought to you courtesy of the new Laptop. Thank you LT. Next things next. Wednesday I got a package in the mail from Terry Bicycles. Stitchy got me hooked with her Terry Paraphenalia, and Martha and Kellee were quick to point out how stylish and practical so many articles in the Terry line are (and I have to agree with them - cute *and* useful). As if there isn't enough crack around here already. Anyway, the ladies raved about the commuter skort - bicycle shorts that double as a cute skirt (awesome!) and I had to try me some. And if it ever gets nice out again, I may even get to wear them sometime. And just when you thought that was enough for packages, when I got home from work today, there was a nice little slip from the USPS announcing the arrival of: (dunh dunh dunh) ... the Honey Bee, the Ashford Traveller that is coming to live with me. I have to thank Ms. Melanie for suggesting the name Honey, from the pictures I think it truly suits her, although tomorrow will tell for certain. So, tomorrow, after running a serious amount of errands, should be filled with fun, fibery goodness. I am almost jumping out of my seat thinking about it. In the meantime, I will be knitting happily along on my Sherbert Sock, which I'm knitting with the Sockotta which was a sweet and thoughtful gift from Bookish Wendy. And now, I'm off to knit and to bed early, so that tomorrow will come sooner... just like if I were 8 years old and it was Christmas Eve. Stay tuned for pictures of the Sherbert Sock, and real-time pictures of the unveiling of Honey Bee, and maybe a few more surprises, perhaps? ;) Happy Friday!

I am Pleased to Introduce

2005-06-22T15:31:00.000-04:00

Our newest addition to the family: I adopted her last night, Tuesday, June 21, at dusk on the Summer Solstice. She will be coming to live with us for good in two weeks, which I am convinced will be the longest two weeks ever, but cooler heads assure me that they will go by as normal. I'm thrilled to have her, and the circumstances surrounding her arrival have convinced me that it was her Fate to come and live with me. And I wasn't about to go around and mess with Fate or anything, you know? So, now I have two weeks to read up on everything Spinning so that I can be prepared for her arrival, and to come up with a good name. What I really need is good quality time with a Name Book, but since my parents chucked the last of those a long time ago (my youngest brother just graduated 8th grade) and if I brought one home I might just cause Eric to have a heart attack before I could explain things, finding a name might be more difficult than it would seem. We shall see. Good things on the laptop front too. Evidentially, working for The Man has its benefits at times. You see, The Man owns a Major Computer Company, and as such, we are privy to the Major Computer Company's employee discounts and promotions. As it happens, one of those are coming up sometime soon, and so if I'm lucky (and keep your fingers crossed) I might be in possession of a laptop sooner than I had hoped. WhooHoo! Soon, hopefully, Posts and Pictures will be plentiful around here at the Project, and hells, the whole site might get a major overhaul. But, really, I shouldn't let myself get away with myself like that. It's all speculation at this point. But a girl can dream... Still chugging along on the Lush Scarf for now, I'm hoping to get more quality knitting time as I ween myself off the sauce ;) I've put a moratorium on any New Big Plans, because I'm done. It's been fun, but we've been doing too much, I don't have time to do the things I want to do (read, knit, lounge, reflect, cook, etc.) let alone the things I need to do (laundry, clean, grocery shop, open mail). So, less sauce, more wool! Hooray!

Lush.

2005-06-17T16:37:00.000-04:00

Lush. Is that a perfect name for the favorite yarn of a girl who's going to Manhattan this weekend for a Beirut Tournament, or what?* That's what I thought. Let the games begin. *aka Beer Pong

God's Country

2005-06-13T17:06:00.000-04:00

An Ode to Minnesota, or, Why Minnesota Is My Favorite Place Ever, in Iambic Pentameter: The boat, it drifts so slow across the lake; we came prepared with coolers filled with food. Hours pass, our laughter fills the time; we take our turn towards shore, this day my soul's renewed. This land is filled with happy homes, pristine outdoors, and healthy size eights, tens. Out here, there are no Jones's, no silent judging. I'm reluctant to go home, that's for sure. Before we leave we pass a knitting store; too bad it's closed, I would have like some yarn (and God, She knows just what I need is more...) Perhaps it's good 'nough reason to return. I'll find a way to make it back some way Just please don't tell my boss before that day ;)

By the Way, I Love My Hair

2005-06-09T16:59:00.000-04:00

It has come to my attention that in my efforts to remain mysterious about the Doo, I may have inadvertantly conveyed the impression that I wasn't happy with my hair. This could not be further from the truth. I love my hair, and with the whole 80s preppy revival so popular with the youngsters nowadays, making that reference was not derogatory, but rather a compliment. Please note, I have officially jumped on the 80s bandwagon. But I'm still not going to tell you what I did. You'll just have to wait for Elisa to post her pictures... ;)

The Hair Club for Knitters, part deux

2005-06-09T15:46:00.000-04:00

So, I really don't know how to follow up on Elisa's fabulous post through pictures of the Hair Adventures of last weekend. You all know by now that any promises of pictures on my part are evil and filthy lies, and that much of what I would write would simply echo the wonderfulness the Elisa already posted about. But that's not going to stop me from trying. Here goes: 9am: Kickass knitter and super lady Elisa picks my sorry hungover ass up Very Early Saturday morning. (Anytime that is within 4 or 5 hours of when I went to bed the night before is Very Early in my book.) Luckily I didn't have to do my hair, because the nice lady at the hairdresser was going to wash it for me anyway. I love haircut days like that. 9:01am: Elisa and I start talking. We begin with How are you? and quickly move on to the Meaning of Life. 9:30am: Kind, sweet Elisa in her trusty Hyundaimobile pulls of the highway for a much needed coffee, water and bagel stop. I'm pretty sure that the Everything Bagel with Cream Cheese saves me from a slow and painful death by Bud Light. 10:30am: Hello, Portsmouth! Is it coincidence that the main parking garage is located 30 feet from the Yarn Shop? I think not. Within seconds of parking the car Elisa and I are gleefully fondling yarn. 10:45am: While waiting for Maryse, Elisa and I settle on the Meaning of Life and move on to Inner Harmony and Life View. 11:00am: Hello, Maryse! Our merrie party increases to three. 11:05am: There is more fondling of yarn. This goes on for some time. Amidst the fondling, I find the Perfect Yarn and its name is Lush. 12 noon: Lunchtime! Mz. Bookish joins us at the Friendly Toast for a hip and tasty meal. 2pm: Time for the Doo. Did we really take 2 hours to eat lunch? It didn't seem like that long. Maybe it took us awhile to walk over to the Doo. I'm not sure. 2pm - 5pm: Snip, snip, snip, knit, knit, knit. Maryse goes fabulously chic, I reclaim the 80s and (insert your own guess here - let's just say I didn't just get a trim). Wendy gets a super cute trim (prepare for the fun bedhead shots) and Elisa gets a subtle yet lovely reshape. Wendy departs for hostess duties, and is sure to take her guests' breath away with her stylish and cute doo. 5:25pm: I need to buy Lush. The Flag is coming down, is she closing? NOOOOO!!!!!!! I make a mad dash for the shop, running like the girliest girl, laughter echos from behind me, I don't care, I NEED LUSH!!! Run, run, pant, pant, knock, knock, knock, I'm so sorry, are you still open? I just need to buy some Lush. Score. 2 skeins and a perfect scarf pattern for my mother. Thanks to the sweet shopkeeper who chatted it up with us as we went in and out of her shop 4 different times that day, and still didn't hate me when I waited to make my one purchase until right before closing time. Okay, she probably hated me, but she still opened the door, and for that I am grateful. 5:45pm: Time for iced coffee. Mmmm. Maryse, Elisa and I find ourselves a nice little table in the middle of the brick square in the heart of Portsmouth. Armed with large iced coffees and a fabulous view for people watching, we launch into knitting and conversations about Growing Up. 7:00pm: Maryse has to leave, and we decide, somewhat reluctantly, that it's time to head back to Boston. 7:15pm: Elisa and I continue talking about Growing Up. 8:30pm: The Fat Belly Deli and Belasis (?) Cafe, my new favorite hangout. Over dinner and a few beers, Elisa and I conclude on Growing Up and move on to the Nature of Friendship. 9:45pm: Against my Inner Jackie and despite the fact that I was having such a good time we could have hung out until the wee hours of the morning and I would still be in sheer awe of the humor, fun and keen insight of my new friend, I decide I should go home instead of continuing on with a few frosty lobotomies with Elisa. Elisa kindly drives me back through the ghetto and gangs of 15-year-old Southie punks to my humble abode. We find time to fit in some final musings on the Universe. It was a fine, fine day. Other than that I have been so busy that I've barely had time to sleep, let alone breathe, eat, or knit. We scored wheels, and so now I'm mobile beyond the reaches of the MBTA or my bike (awesome!) and I still have the Trifecta of Purchases on the horizon, in order of priority: 1) Laptop 2) Spinning Wheel 3) Digital Camera Once I have the laptop, I will be posting more regularly, and with pictures too! I might even migrate over to Typepad or some other service, but all these things take time on a computer that I just can't get at work, you know, when I'm supposed to be working. Speaking of which, I gotta get back to that.

Yuck

2005-06-03T20:17:00.000-04:00

Still at work. Busy week. Yarn, the Crown Vic Saga, and the Hair Club for Knitters return on Monday. (Maybe Sunday if Eric brought his laptop home) Have a great weekend all!

Happy Thoughts

2005-05-27T13:29:00.000-04:00

Thanks everyone, for leaving your favorite memories - it was a real treat to come in this morning and read a bunch of emails filled with such happy thoughts. These are just excerpts, and don't they just put a smile on your face? "On Derby Day, Kissin' Kris was one of the horses that ran, didn't win, but I did." "but that's where i realized how strong i was. and free. and powerful." "(I got a kiss from a previous crush that night, too, which was a nice addition)." "I've been very lucky ;-)" "has included the first job I really love, an entire year in an apartment that feels like a home" "what i have noticed is that they've gotten better as i've gotten older" "31 is a good place to be. I think I'll stay for a while." Thanks everyone, for taking the time to share. :) The next time you hear from me, it'll be a whole new year in the making!

Farewell to a Quarter Century

2005-05-26T14:24:00.000-04:00

Today, as a birthday wish, I'm asking a little something from you all. At the end of each birthday year, I try to reflect on the past year, think on everything I've been through, learned, and am thankful for all the good things that have happened. As 26 is rapidly approaching, I started to think back on 25, and it didn't take long for me to realize that 25 rocked, which got me to thinking some more. I can't be the only one who does this, and so, I'm curious to learn which was your favorite year for you, and why. I know that everyone probably has one, even if you haven't really given it a lot of thought. There's that one year that sticks out in your head, where you were riding high, and loving life. So, I'm asking you all to share with me which one it was for you, and what made it such a kick ass year. As a measure of good faith, I'll go first. ;) Why 25 is #1 (so far): It started with a surprise party thrown by Eric, who had arranged for my life long best friend to covertly fly up from NY to visit for the weekend and a big dinner at Maggiano's with the Southie crew, and then a family party the next day, with a large chunk of my extended family, my friends, and a band playing in the backyard till all hours of the night. Just one more of a million reasons to love Eric! That same week, I moved out of my parents' house to Southie, and ultimately set up a happy home with Eric. Some months later, Eric asked me to marry him. I said yes. I left public accounting, did a stint in publishing, and finally got a "real" job. Which is not as cool as the publishing thing, but I like the people and the work better. I spent two weeks at a friend's home on St. John with nothing to do but lounge on the beach, read, play cards and drink punch. I learned to knit, and met some very cool knit ladies along the way. ;) I went to my first Sheep & Wool festival, and I spun up my first singles on a drop spindle. I paid off all my credit card debt! The Red Sox won the World Series!!!!!!!!! I learned to cook and to bake bread using my own hands. I became a Godmother. I became car-free and after several months of hoofing it, I bought a bike (and actually ride it). If I'm lucky, it'll be the year I pass the CPA exam (results in June, but I sat in May, so I say it counts!) I saw Jack Johnson, Coldplay and U2 in concert. They all kicked serious ass. -------------- As you can see, 25 has made a serious bid for number 1, and I can't deny it its rightful place in the pantheon of great years. (25 would like to thank all the wonderful people who have made this possible. :) 26 has some big shoes to fill. I'll miss you 25!!! Now, it's your turn: Drop me some goodies in the comments - I want to hear it! (You don't have to go on at length, unless you want to ;)

Today

2005-05-25T11:45:00.000-04:00

You know you're from New England when it's 42 degrees and raining in May, and you think to yourself, hmm, my spring coat should be fine. 42 degrees and raining in November, now that calls for a winter coat and a big ass umbrella. 42 degrees and raining in May, hell, we've just been through 7 months of cold weather hell and somehow 42 degrees is warm enough to walk to work with a only a spring coat. Someday I will live where it's warm so often that I will feel I need a coat when it's in the 60s. (As opposed to stripping down into a tank and shorts...) But that day is a long way off. Today, well, today is a different story. Today I am left riding on a U2 high in the wake of their show last night, a band celebrating 25 years of kick ass greatness. Today, I am browsing eBay and the far reaches of the internet for my first spinning wheel. Today, I am attempting to negotiate repairs on the Crown Vic, hoping that smoke from under the hood is from old leaves and not a burned out engine. Today, I will be drinking margaritas in honor of my friend Katie, who is freeing herself from the shackles of public accounting. Another soul saved. Today is pretty good. Hope you all are having good Todays too.

Lazy Sundays

2005-05-22T10:55:00.000-04:00

In North Carolina right now, it's 75 degrees with a high of 80 for today. In Minnesota right now, it's 65 degrees with a high of 72 for today. In South Boston right now, it's 45 with a high of 51 for today. Sucks to be in South Boston, huh? And so, on this chilly, grey and otherwise depressing Sunday morning, I am left with nothing to do but cuddle up on the couch with my lap duvet, browse the internet for laptops and wedding dresses, and maybe, just maybe, pull out the spindle for a little fun later on. Maybe this crappy weather isn't so bad? (What am I saying?!?) Many, Many Thanks to Kellee who last night suffered the cold rain at midnight to wrestle with my bike wheel. It was ugly, but she got me home (thanks!!!)

Dirty Crack* Pushers

2005-05-17T16:42:00.000-04:00

The first hit was free. They got me drinking the Strongbows, got me tipsy, and then they took advantage - Kellee said here, try this, it's good. You'll like it. You know you want to try it. Everyone's doing it. Isn't it pretty? Isn't it? It was late, I was tired and tipsy, I was vulnerable. I took the spindle, I spun the roving. And it was good. So. Good. Now I'm cruising the internet pricing out spinning wheels. I bought a 16 oz cone (cone is *not* the right word) of un-dyed white merino roving, with the full expectation that I will be spinning it up for a sweater. Using a drop spindle, I've spun up all the fleece that I was supposed to use for my second thrummed mitten. I can't make it to look like Kellee's pretty handspun, it's thick and uneven, and it makes me loathe the spindle, but I can't stop. I guess that makes me a dirty crack* whore. (See Ms. Melanie for a full account of NHS&W - I had a fabulous time, there was hand-painting, spinning, knitting, yarn and fiber galore, and of course, good company. :) *By "crack" I mean "spinning/roving/fleece".

Ramblings

2005-05-13T13:15:00.000-04:00

This weekend is going to one of Ups and Downs. To start, Eric scored us tickets to see Coldplay at the Avalon tonight, which is going to be one kick ass show. Let me set a scene for you: Early June, 2001 Cambridge, MA (Inman Sq) 22 years and 3 days old, recently married and more recently divorced, I am 2 weeks into my first apartment, ever, with non-related roommates, ever. (Rooming arrangements with ex-husband not included) Roommate 1 is a singer-songwriter from California with cute blonde hair streaked with hot pink. She works her day job as an office manager for an architectural firm, and when not recording tracks for her 1st record, she reads Tarot cards for anyone willing to sit and listen. Roommate 2 is the sister of Roommate 1, just back from a 2 year stint in Barcelona and applying for a position at Harvard. There is also pink streaked through her dark hair. Roommate 3 is a blonde boy from the UK, an engineer for the Big Dig, and a semi-professional Tri-Athlete. Enter Jackie, Accountant. It is one of those perfect June days, the sparking blue sky and perfect 80 odd degrees that make all the horrible weather in New England worth it, and I am sitting alone in my room taking it all in. It is the sort of time and place where everything seems more than it is. I remember the smell of the air, the quality of the light, the feel of the carpet beneath my feet, and the rattling of the blinds when the breeze came through the windows. The doorbell rings, and at the door is my Aussie rebound-fling-boy-toy/bane-of-my-existence back from a mini-trip to London and with a CD in hand. It is Coldplay, Parachutes. It becomes the soundtrack of every coming of age moment that summer, laughter and tears, roadtrips and bum around weekends, heartbreak and stepping out on my own. And now, I am seeing them live, on stage, in one of the best small venues in the city. The thought is just about knocking my socks off. Of course, I'm sitting for the Financial Accounting and Reporting section of the CPA exam tomorrow morning. It's a 5.5 hour long exam. That sucks. Really bad. But after that, I'm scooting my spent little self up to Concord NH to meet up with Melanie and Kellee for the NHS&W festival! Yay! Up. Down. Up. It's going to be a roller coaster sort of weekend. Yarn Content: Second sock is almost finished, cast on for a lace wrap in Rowan Kidsilk Haze. I originally was using wooden needles (only 8s I had on hand) and they made me want to poke my eyes out trying to knit Kidsilk on them. So, last night I transferred to plastic needles, and hopefully it will be better going from here. This is my first lace project, God Help Me. And here's a Meme, courtesy of Mz. Bookish, who I am honored to call a friend**: Q: You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? I'm going to assume that this question means which book would I want to memorize to preserve it for future generations after the impending holocaust. Hmmm. So do I decide based on whether I think its literary value is important to humanity, or because it would be something that I would enjoy having memorized? I'm going to pick based on both - I'm going with the entire works of Shakespeare. Hard, but probably not impossible, especially if I lived under a bridge and had nothing else to do because I was exiled from society. Q: Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Definitely have had crushes on fictional characters, just not of the print variety. I may love a character, but the crush element only comes in with a visual (and then, of course, transfers to the actor who plays the character, because you know the actor is *exactly* that that role he played in the movie, tv show, etc., ahem Adam Brody, George Clooney, you get the idea...) Q: The last book you bought is: CPA exam review books. Damn, they suck. To be less technical, the last books for fun I bought were JSMN and the Harlot Book, at the same time. That was a real treat. :) Q: The last book you read: The last book that I finished: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (finally!) Q: What are you currently reading? Nothing, yet. I had been reading JSMN for over a month(!) and it squeezed out everything else I had been reading.... I went to a really cool independent bookstore in Coolidge Corner last night and started scoping out books for the next read. Everyone's recommending Atonement by Ian McEwan, so maybe it will be that. Q: Five books you would take to a desert island. Tricky. Do I take books I've already read over and over knowing that they're winners, or do I take huge books that I haven't read yet, so as to not have used up any potential re-reads? I think I would end up taking 5 of the thickest books I could find. Books I haven't read, but ones like these which I've already read: Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace (which I haven't read, so it counts, I would take it - it's HUGE) The Stand - Stephen King JSMN - Susanna Clarke I'm cheating and going to include series in this, assuming they would be completed by the time I was stranded, because it would drive me nuts have them and not knowing how they ended. The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan Harry Potter by JK Rowling Song of Fire & Ice by George R.R. Martin Now, what's important to note is that I wouldn't take these (or books like them) because I thought they were the best books I ever read, more because I think they would provide the longest and most enjoyable hours of entertainment value. Bonus Question: Elisa asks, how does Corona = Limo? That's a good question. I'm not quite sure. But it was cool. Have a great weekend everyone! ** JKC Project is an Equal Opportunity Friendster (EOF).

Meet My Inner Fool

2005-05-06T16:01:00.000-04:00

My dear former roommate Jen is a big believer in the spiritual forces of the universe. I'm talking karma, astrology, Fate & Destiny, tarot, all of it. She read my cards a few times (surprisingly cool and a good tool for reflection) and among other things, introduced me to this really neat site for Horoscopes: Free Will Astrology It pretty much defies modern horoscope convention (today is a good day for business matters, beware of a dark stranger after lunch, etc.) and acts more instead as a cheerleader for your soul. I love it. My horoscope for this week included this quote from the playwright Theodore Rubin: "I must learn to love the fool in me--the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool." This one in particular spoke to me, and I think I inadvertantly let my Inner Fool out last night as a result. Our friend is in town from Switzerland and so last night we all got together at a favorite local watering hole, and the next thing you know, too many Coronas and a few shots later, there's Dance Party USA happening and I'm riding home in a limo. For real. My Inner Fool had a kick ass time last night, and I feel very alive today as a result. Take that Tyrant. And while we're on the whole Inner Fool thing, mine says who needs MD when you gots NH? The lovely ladies Ms. Melanie and Kellee organized a trip up to the NHS&W festival next weekend, and don't you think that a girly weekend away with very cool knit ladies and wool up to our elbows is going to be a rollicking good time? I thought so. The rental car is booked and it's NH or bust baby. And last but not least, I have finished the sock. As a side note, the Kitchener Stitch may be my least favorite technique I've learned so far, and I'm not even sure I did it right, but the sock toe is closed and I guess that's the whole point. I have a picture, but I keep forgetting my camera.... (and my girlfriend lives in Niagra Falls, for real) Happy Friday everyone!

A Question of Nature

2005-05-04T16:27:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, I was an international relations undergrad, with dreams of practicing international human rights law. I, in my infinite 18-year-old wisdom, scoffed at business majors and particularly scorned accounting majors as heartless and soulless drones without a creative drop in the their bean-counting little bodies. And then, upon realizing that I'd probably end up slaving in some creepy senator's office getting my ass pinched, and spending years trying to get a rewarding position, I re-evaluated my aforementioned opinions, and became one of the heartless and soulless accounting majors that I had once scorned. (I'll spare you the whole process of realizing that people are people and that heartless and soulless can be found everywhere, as can heartful and soulful, yaddah yaddah yaddah.) Anyway. The longer I pursue this profession, the more I find that the nature of the work seeps into my soul and bends my character to its will. *I have become extraordinarily anal about detail. This, I assure you, is not inherent in my nature. (It is, however, a good thing for my knitting.) *I like lists. I like to follow a set of instructions and to be able to tick them off as they are completed. The *real* Jackie rails against mundane tasks and prefers conceptualizing and managing project teams. But I secretly like putting together binders of accounting schedules with everything indexed and cross-referenced. It's sick. *I can no longer write in a creative, free-form manner. My language has to be precise and concise, with a business-like tone. (Okay, okay, I rarely acheive concise, but the point remains.) And the whole reason I bring this up is because I was having a really hard time coming up with something fun and creative to post this afternoon. I saw a set of questions on Amy's blog that I thought would be fun to answer, and it was just another little reminder that, as opposed to being all creative and fun, I'm going to succumb to my nerdy accountant nature and use a list of questions to dictate my post. But, I still like the questions, so here goes: 1. What is your favorite movie soundtrack? If your life had a soundtrack, what would that soundtrack be and why? The Royal Tenenbaums, for both questions. It's a soundtrack of life: sadness, loss, individuality, learning and redemption, and the music rocks. 2. If someone said to you that a woman who knits cannot call herself a feminist, what would your response be? Those are the same people who say that the color pink hurts the feminist cause. That's crap too. Feminism is about women having the freedom to make whatever choices they want, be they ones that keep them in or out of the home, in trousers and ties or in pink skirts, with handsaws or knitting needles in hand. Period. 3. What has been your best blogging experience? Worst? Lots of good experiences... meeting my first real knit friends in person and finding out that the blogs can only begin to reflect how cool these ladies are probably tops the cake in general. The worst was the ugliness after the election. There was a lot of vitriol being spit around in general, and it was a powerful demonstration of how passions gone awry (and labeling/generalizing) can rip apart a characteristically close-knit (no pun intended) group of people who are naturally inclined to get along. 4. When deciding whether or not to knit someone a gift, do you have any criteria to determine if someone is "knit worthy"? My desire to knit a gift for someone (wee ones aside) is directly proportionate to how much I think they will appreciate the effort/craftwork. I won't waste my time or good wool on someone who is knit-ignorant, or unappreciative in general. And to wrap up, I've reached the toe on my first sock. Not, the first sock (of the pair). My first sock (ever)*. It should be finished tonight, and I'm working real hard to have a picture of it up here tomorrow... *Well, the first sock I ever turned the heel on, and thus actually reached the toe. Let's not bring up the one still on needles, woefully waiting to have its heel turned, okay?

2005-05-02T15:45:00.000-04:00

Finally, the period for eating crow is over. I have turned the heel. (WhooHOO!)

The Harlot and More

2005-05-01T14:31:00.000-04:00

Dear Internet, These past few weeks have been a blur, let me tell you. For starters, I was racing to finish the Harlot Daisy Sweater in time for the Little Angel’s 1st birthday. I mailed it off on Friday, only a week and a half late, which I’m considering a success. It was my first sweater (not to be confused with MFS™ which is still on the needles in the current projects box) and I highly recommend the pattern to anyone looking for a relatively quick, straightforward and super cute project for the favorite baby in her life. Alas, I have no pictures.* Maybe my sister-in-law will be kind enough to take a picture of Caili in the sweater for me to post here. We’ll see… Anyway, the sweater has been the undertone of everything I’ve done over the past few weeks. Knitting has become like music for me, defining periods and associating memories by what I've been listening to/working on. I'm sure this must be the case for many knitters, but April '05 has become the month of the Harlot Daisy Sweater, with its light blue mercercized cotton knitting up like a dream. And, in a slightly odd coincidence, I mailed off the Harlot Daisy Sweater the same afternoon I was headed down to Circles in JP to see the Harlot live and in the flesh. I have to say, I was pretty excited about the whole thing. The weather was gorgeous, I was going to spend the evening with knitters (some who I had met before, some who I had read online, but most I had not yet met), there was a crazy spread of pot luck goodies (have you noticed the penchant it seems that most knitters have for chocolate? I think there was a 3:1 of chocolate goodies to everything else on those tables... and I’m not complaining) and to top it all off, the Harlot was coming. Internet, you would have loved the Harlot – she was about as fun and kick ass as you would expect AND she took the time to chat with everyone who wanted their book signed. Needless to say, I had a kick ass time. You might not be surprised by this, because you’ve been deluged with accounts of Harlot signings and other blogger meet-ups, but for some reason, I’m always a little surprised at the raucous good times I have whenever I get together with knitters/bloggers. I don’t know why, because I always have a crazy good time, but it may be because it’s always an even better time than I had hoped. Anyway, it was great to see two ladies who I hadn’t seen in a while: Ms. Melanie & the infamous Stitchy McYarnpants (whom the Harlot seemed excited to meet, due to some evil cat incidents, and her considerate use of the pop up link) Also, I had the great pleasure of meeting: Kellee Colleen Johanna Amy Claudia Rosemary This was the crew that ended up gathering at Doyle’s for the after party. Good times were had by all, and there was much laughter and chatter (of the knit and non-knit variety). You should definitely check out everyone’s posts, because they actually took pictures and posted them. As of this post, Melanie, Colleen, Johanna, and Claudia have posted stories and pictures. Anyway Internet, I know you couldn’t be there and I feel bad. But don’t worry, because you’re in good company – we missed Wendy and Elisa too. Off to work on my new sock – Jackie *My camera sucks. I have officially given up on it, and have committed to buy a new camera soon. This post was brought to you by the power of Eric’s laptop. Thanks Eric, for hauling it home.

Crazy

2005-04-20T08:01:00.000-04:00

Quick post, as I came in early to work in order to use the internet... New job: Awesome. Great people, great atmosphere, great company, great facilities, challenging work. Love it so far. One of the biggest changes is that my downtime factor and acceptable activities on the computer has decreased dramatically. No personal emails on the work email system, and I'm pretty sure that means no blogging in idle moments too. I will need to get myself access to the internet from home, which means a laptop, which might take awhile. Until then, posts will be sporadic (which really is no different from before, I guess ;). New bike: Awesome, awesome, awesome. I bought a bicycle to scoot my ass around, and I got a little saddlebag so I can carry cargo, and it pretty much rocks. The shower facilities are work are about 84,000 times nicer than my own shower facilities at home (mine aren't bad, but a little cramped for space...) and so I can ride into work, and get ready there. It's really peaceful riding to work in the morning, much less stressful than riding the bus, let me tell you... New baby sweater: Today is The Little Angel's 1st birthday!!!! I have finished all the knitting for the Harlot's Daisy Sweater and will be working on assembly this week, hopefully in time to bring down with me when I visit my brother in a couple of weeks. No pictures. I left my USB cable at my old job. Whoops. New book: Halfway through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Enjoying it, but tough to lug around everywhere.... (it's HUGE! I love big hardback books though, I have to be honest :) New season: SPRING IS HERE!!!!!! Flowers and sunshine, and I feel like a new woman. I will be trying to stop by everyone's blogs over the next couple of days to catch up on everything I've missed, can't wait to see how everyone's doing! :)

Fielding Questions

2005-03-31T12:07:00.000-05:00

Last night I went out with one of my girlfriends for dinner and drinks. We had a rollicking good time, and as a result, I'm a wee bit groggy today. Therefore, I decree it Mailbag Day... Johanna asks: Just curious... which store is your LYS? I tend to go to Windsor Button for my standard knitting needs. It's just across the Common from where I work, they have a large selection of books for reference, and I have a good idea in my head of what they have in stock and how much it costs. Windsor Button is where I purchased the yarn for Caili's Daisy Sweater. Once I switch jobs, it will not be feasible for me to go to Windsor Button from work, it's just a little too far. I will probably check out Newbury Yarns again (loved the colorful layout of the store, but there wasn't a price list before and I have the impression that it is more expensive, although that's simply my own conjecture). I love Circles in JP, and I can't wait to check out the Knitting Room in Arlington, once I have a car (soon!) I will be going to those and others much more frequently. Elisa asks: please do explain what an "Irish Car Bomb" is? An Irish Car Bomb is a pint of Guiness with a shot of Baily's dashed with Jameson dropped into it, which you chug immediately after the drop. It tastes kind of like a vanilla caramel Guiness, if you can imagine it. These are sure to induce drunken shenanigans and general trouble. And a slew of questions from Wendy, who tagged me for this Meme: What was the last book you read or are reading? I should be reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I haven't gotten to the bookstore yet (maybe this afternoon?) I read like I knit, I usually have about 8 books going at once depending on what mood I'm in, unless something catches my fancy like wildfire, in which case I won't put it down until I'm finished. Literally. Right now I'm reading the following: Guns, Germs & Steel - Jared Diamond (super interesting) Europe - Oxford Press (the quest to self educate) Winter's Heart - Robert Jordan (guilty pleasure re-read) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (would be guilty pleasure romance novel, but it's Anna Karenina, so really it's like a free pass) Neither Here nor There - Bill Bryson (fun travel book - prep for Europe trip) I really want to read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, and of course, when I go to pick up Jonathan Strange, I will also be picking up my very own copy of the Harlot book. Where did it come from (library, bookstore, gift, etc.)? Hmmm.... in order of appearance: Eric, St. Joe's College Bookstore, Svobodas Books in State College, PA, The Village Bookstore in Lincoln, NH, Waldenbooks in Worcester, and the rest have not yet been purchased. How many books do you read per year? A lot. But not as much since I started knitting. I probably average 4 or 5 a month, but that would definitely include quick reads like Moneyball, Plot Against America (I devoured that book in 2 work days) and Bill Bryson type books. What is your favorite genre? Standard fiction. I love to get lost in a story. Who will you tag now? It stops here. :)

A Little Angel

2005-03-30T14:09:00.000-05:00

Sock, Ran out to pick up some milk. Be back soon. jc ----- Hahahahahaaa!! I've started a new project and it's stolen my heart just like the little girl for whom I'm knitting it. The sock will just have to live in its unturned heel misery for a little longer, and I will stand loud and proud and eat the crow I deserve for all the brash words from last week. I'm doing it all for this baby angel:
My eldest brother and his family came to visit for Easter, and it was just fantastic to see them. I don't know if it's just me, or all women, but there's just something about holding a baby that makes me want to knit something right up for them. Ack!!! Giving in to the knitting urge is a lot better than giving in to the actual baby making urge I suppose, my clock's not ticking that loud yet... ;) So, what do you think about this yarn...
...for the Harlot's Daisy Sweater in this knitty. I'm planning on making the sweater in blue, and using the color yarn to stitch up the daisy design. I thought that using the multi-colored yarn would probably be a good way to get several colors in there without buying several more skeins, seeing that I don't have the stash on hand to make the daisies. Anyway, I am loving the yarn and the project, and it'll be a good intro to sweaters to boot. (My First Sweater (TM) is still on the needles in my stash box, for inquiring minds...) I have about 2 or 3 inches knit up already, including what I've done at lunch today. Shout out to Mz. Bookish: You rock chicky! I have finally mastered reading and knitting, and I never would have done it without your inspiration. It has helped ease a huge point of stress in my recreational time... ;) Pictures of Daisy in Progress, coming later this week....

Timing.

2005-03-24T16:04:00.000-05:00

Yeah, not so much. Last night there was no sock knitting. I blame FedEx. Have I mentioned how FedEx refuses to leave things at my apartment? This is extremely frustrating, and so I have generally had things shipped to me at work. Problem solved, fine. Well, in this case, the item was a letter, and it was something that I couldn't have sent to me at work. I thought this would be fine, since it was a LETTER, and could fit through my mail slot. No signature required. Evidentially not. When I got home last night, with a nose full of snot, and a chest cold brewing like you wouldn't believe, I had a little notice waiting for me, kindly requesting that I pick up my package at the FedEx facility on the edge of town. Now, for most people, this wouldn't be a problem. But for me, this meant I had to gear right back out into schleppy March cold and walk to the docks where the FedEx facility is located. I had to do this my dears, because that little package contained the offer letter for my new job. (WhooHOO!!!) The timing was important - I couldn't give my notice until I had the letter. I needed to give my notice by today, because of when my start date will be. You get the idea. I was thrilled that it all worked out, despite all the trudging through the cold. So, I got into work, and my boss told me that the other person in our group was being let go, effective today. Woah. And then I had to tell my boss I was giving my notice. What a day.

The Only Thing to Fear

2005-03-23T13:09:00.000-05:00

I'm not quite sure why I haven't been eager to muster up a post the past couple of weeks. I told myself it was because of life happening, and truly believed it, but as that has been 99% resolved as of yesterday, I realized that it had to be something else... (And by 99%, that means I can't post about it until tomorrow. But it's good news :) Anyway. Back to our little investigation. I thought it might be the February Doldrums. Unfortunately, it's March, and yesterday was 50 degrees out, so although that might have been a factor in the beginning, I can hardly claim that Old Man Winter is still the cause. There was the whole Hat Thing, right? It was killing my knitting soul, but with Elisa's sweet sock yarn, I was right back on track. Or so I thought. After much defiberation, I have a confession to make. (deep breath) I'm afraid to turn the heel. (and exhale) I've been knitting the heel flap for like a week and a half, it's been sitting there on my nightstand, mocking me, taunting me, and I've simply ignored it out of fear and ignorance, citing my lame generated online sock pattern that is simply unclear and blatantly incorrect (and seems incorrect in some spots going forward, but how do I know, it's my first freaking sock) as the problem, but the truth is, my problem does NOT lie with the pattern, but with ME and my COURAGE. But today, ladies and gents, today is the day that all changes. Tonight I am going straight home, taking out that sock and the lame generated online sock pattern, and I am going to give it the old what for, and it's gonna have the best damn turned heel ever. So there. Now to do some catch up. Aside from the whole life happening thing, there has been much rollicking good fun happening here at the Project. Eric and I went up to NH a couple of weekends ago with my family, and after nearly skidding off the road about 42 times because of the raging snowstorm (snow in NH, rain in Boston) we reached our destination safely. All the life threatening driving was totally worth it though, because the conditions were like nothing I've ever seen before. Simply unbelievable - 8 inches of fresh powder, mostly ungroomed. Then, life happened some more last week, there were some comedies of error, and then I decided to start the weekend early, like, say 6pm on Thursday. It being St. Patty's day and all, I met up with my family to celebrate with some Chinese food and beer. Lots of beer. In fact, there was so much beer I woke up in Worcester, after a couple of pit stops which, to put it nicely, are a little fuzzy.* I woke up miraculously at *exactly* 8 am, which happens to be *exactly* 1 hour before I was due at work, and about the minimum amount of time it takes to drive to Boston from Worcester. I took the quickest shower known to woman, threw on the *same* clothes as the day before (now reeking of booze and smoke) and tried to drag my brother out of bed to drive me to work. Tried being the operative word, as when I finally woke him, he started puking. And pretty much puked the whole morning. (I felt really bad that I woke him up.) But, I still had to get to work, so I borrowed his car and high tailed it into Boston. And then spent the next 8 hours hoping to God I wasn't going to puke all morning too. Friday and Saturday were spent recovering and warming up for this: The Annual Southie St. Patrick's Day Parade. I've been to every once since I've been old enough to drink, and it's pretty much the Irish equivalent to the Boston Marathon. You train for months to drink as much as you can on one single day, and there's a bunch of people on the side of the road cheering you on. (The above pictures are from St. Pat's Parades Past, but do well to represent what goes on every year, because it's always the same: drinking, eating and cheering as loud as possible for the men in kilts playing bagpipes. Of course, we have no digital pictures from this year, but Eric took a whole roll on his good camera.) Because this year is the first year that I've actually *lived* in Southie for the event, it was a little different for us. Instead of carrying around beer in my backpack and wandering around to all my friends' apartments and drinking their beer too, we bought as much beer as our fridge could hold, made a quadruple batch of chili, and served as a waystation for everyone we knew and then some. Good times, all around. My favorite moment? Sarah running out of the crowd to kiss an old man riding a mini-cart in the parade. From the look on his face, I'm pretty sure he hadn't been kissed like that in a long time. My biggest disappointment? Not seeing the children's Irish Dancing brigades. There are usually a couple of floats with grade school kids dancing their little legs off like Lord of the Dance, but I must have been using the loo when they went by. My new favorite bakery? The Oven Door, and the drunk woman who worked there, for giving us all their leftover pastries so she could close shop early and come watch the parade. Rock on. Since Sunday, I've been adjusting back to my normal life as a non-alcoholic, and the transition has been fairly smooth, though I've been fighting off a cold. No surprise there, huh? Back tomorrow, with news of the sock and of, um, other stuff. *There may have been several Irish Car Bombs involved.

Status Report

2005-03-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

Howdy everyone. It's been quite a week here at the Project. (I'm not sure what makes that any different than every week here, but it doesn't change the facts.) I'm going to try to do this chronologically, just for my own sake. The Hat Hmmm... The hat's done. YAY!!! That's kind of a fake "yay" I guess. I mean, it's been done for a week. I finished it at lunch last Friday (ever seen someone make a tassle in their cube? I've still got the yellow yarn perched next to my 3-hole punch. I'm such a geek.) But, I wasn't as excited as I was relieved. I think my conclusion on the whole book project thing is: I'm psyched that I got out there and tried it, I learned a lot including fair isle, intarsia, and how much I love circular needles. But the most important lesson was that I love to knit for myself. Not that I only want to make things that are for me, but I like to knit under my own timeline, for my own purposes, and with little to no external guidelines (I am, however, susceptible to Blog Peer Pressure.) That hat was my least favorite project to date, and lot of it was because the whole thing felt like homework. Maybe it was just because it wasn't something I designed that I *loved*. The school colors bit made it tough to love unless you were making it for someone in particular and you were drinking gallons of the school spirit kool-aid. I don't know, but it will be awhile before I succumb to the lure of knitting something for publication again. I did promise myself that I would use the pay from the project to buy yarn, and yarn only. I can't express how excited I am about that, as I've been on a yarn diet since Christmas...... (and, strange coincidence, since about the time I started that project in the first place..... I felt guilty knitting anything else when I was supposed to be working on the hat. I'm glad *that's* over, and I can return to my yarn floozy ways.) Coming Out Last weekend we went away skiing with our Southie crew friends, and quite aside from the 20 million Miller Lites I put back over the course of the weekend, I was impressed with the weekend for many reasons: 1) Eric skied for the first time in 17 years. And he rocked. (He's converting back from being a snowboarder - skiiers spend less time on their ass.) 2) We made it to the mountain after staying up until 3am. And then skiied. This deserves major props, as I have never skiied so hungover, and it was more than once than a member of our party thought they might have to stop and puke on the side of the trail. (Please don't send me the pamphlet, I already know the 10 questions.) 3) I pulled out my knitting on Sunday afternoon, in the midst of hanging out watching the Counting Crows DVD, and swatched for my sock. You know, it's funny, I come from a group of people (my family and crew of close friends) that would consider knitting rude in a social setting. Almost as if someone was knitting because the conversation wasn't interesting enough for them, and so knit to keep themselves occupied. I think I've been knocking that social construct down a bit, but I wasn't sure how my knitting would be received last Sunday, and I think I've done enough to lay the foundation, because no one really batted an eye. Recovery and The Sock I spent Monday and Tuesday quietly recovering from the weekend, with the help of Elisa's Sweet Sock Yarn. Last Wednesday, Elisa very sweetly gifted me with some sock yarn she had on hand, and I'm using it to re-juvenate my knitting spirit after the whole Hat Fiasco. I was unsure about such tiny needles (size 2!) but it's very satisfying to make the small stiches and to make progress more quickly than on, say, a sweater... I'm really enjoying the sock, and I am very grateful to Miss Muse for her generosity. Isn't she a sweetie? Birthdays! Wednesday was this handsome man's birthday:
I love you Eric. :) One reason he's so deep in my heart is because he loves books as much as I do. Witness the above: Eric is taking a much needed "reading break" from the sun and sand in St. John last summer. Eric taught me the singular pleasure of a cup of hot tea before bed, nestled up with a book. (It was the peaceful addition of the tea to the reading part that makes it more of a special quiet time. Eric is gifted at creating and cherishing peaceful relax time. It's like a special ritual.) Thursday was this crazy girl's birthday. And to celebrate, a random assortment of her friends and admirers went to Doyle's in JP, and had ourselves a little get together. There may have been sweet potato fries involved, and I won't even begin to describe the cake (except that it was damn good). There was much laughter and I'm pretty sure I erupted into giggles at least 12 different times. I also found out from Elisa that there is a place you can get a Martini and a Manicure for $12!?! That sounds like the next girls' night out to me. It was great to see Ms. Melanoma again (we won't mention the camera incident), and I was glad to meet the esteemed Stitchy McYarnpants, who is as funny in person as she is online. Wendy is a very cool person, who I feel lucky to have met and I was thrilled to be able to celebrate her birthday with her, her husband and her friends (who are also fun and cool people :) Happy Birthday (week) Wendy! Begin Again Now it's Friday afternoon, and I'm ready for a quiet night. Eric's off with the boys, and I'm curling up with some tea and a sock. If I'm lucky, I'll be asleep by nine. Dance Party at An Tua Nua's is tomorrow night - full report to come next week. Have a great weekend everyone!

Endurance.

2005-02-24T10:13:00.000-05:00

Hat. Is. Finished. Blocking. I had such a great time at Lovely Elisa's last night for dinner and knitting that I was uber-motivated to keep on with the hat when I got home at 10:45. Which I guess was a good thing, because I have to put it in the mail tomorrow, and I'm going out drinking tonight... which pretty much meant that I had an hour during lunch today to finish the top 3 inches of the hat and the tassle cord, and then I would have to try to block it tonight, after several hours of celebratory drinking, while also packing for our trip to NH, for which I am leaving straight from work tomorrow. Lately we have adopted something our friend John calls "an aggressive social schedule". Oof. So, there's a hat stuffed with plastic grocery bags next to my kitchen sink right now. I hope I'm doing it right. I've never blocked anything before. I finished all the knitting last night. I wove in all the ends this morning before setting up for blocking, and I arrived to work almost on time. I have to make a tassle and attach it tomorrow morning. I don't know how to make a tassle. Hee hee. I'm going to ignore that problem for now. I had a *wonderful* time at Elisa's. Her home is lovely (warm and comfortable and filled with great colors) and she is a kind and thoughtful hostess, and I'm so glad that I was able to go last night. (Next week I will unveil the new project, courtesy of Lovely Elisa.) ALSO, I was very happy meet Ms. Melanie for the first time in person, and she is even cooler than her blog would lead you to believe (which of course, is pretty freakin cool). Today is her birthday, and if you haven't already, you definitely should go over and wish her a Happy Birthday. Go on. I'll be here when you get back. As always, the conversation was fun and interesting and each time I leave a gathering of my new knitting friends, I am taken by how much fun I've had and how amazing these ladies are. Très cool. We missed Wendy and Keiko, but it just means that we should all get together again, hopefully soon. :) I didn't take any pictures, but if you ask real nice, maybe Ms. Melanie will post some of the ones she took....

Life is Happening

2005-02-22T12:55:00.000-05:00

Okay. I want to write a big long interesting and excited post about things that are happening in my life right now. But I can't. Cause I can't yet. But, maybe I will have an interesting post in the next couple of weeks. It's kind of like this - I like how she put it: life's been happening, and I'm not stopping it. And the hat's still not done. Close. But not done. Neither's my laundry, which has now approached Emergency Status. To the point where we've had to phone around and see what laundomats are open at what times, so that even though the one laundromat that's open until 8:30 in all of South Boston is 8 blocks away, we will be hauling that laundry on foot through the slush tonight to get the wash done. Emergency Status was reached when the laundromat near us changed their hours, which meant we couldn't get any laundry done before hopping the Fung Wah bus to NYC this weekend. The stupid laundromat was also closed for President's Day (nevermind that there's never anyone in there minding the place anyway, so why MACHINES need the day off is beyond me...) and so Eric and I were washing our smallclothes in the sink last night. Not good times. NYC was good times though. I love that city, and now that the Sox won the World Series, I can admit it without feeling guilty. We saw the Gates, went to the Central Park Zoo, went to some FABULOUS restaurants and a super cool after hours jazz club in the Lincoln center that overlooks Central Park, and walked my little hungover legs off on Sunday afternoon (3 hours, 90+ blocks, and the best Ricotta balls *ever*). I will write an entire post on the Fung Wah bus another time, but suffice it to say that the 8 hours round trip I was on it, most were spent discussing the whole life is happening bit above or sleeping. Even though I had my knitting in the bag by my feet. The poor little hat had to ride down there the whole time without getting any love. I should feel bad for it, but I don't. That's it for now, but tomorrow's Knit Knite, so I should have some knit blog love on Thursday. P.S. I also stole this from Wendy's site - bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now... Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C / Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Bar Knitting

2005-02-10T16:47:00.000-05:00

Last night I met up with the lovely ladies (Elisa, Wendy, Keiko and a new knitter to the flock, Erin) for some knitting, and these random thoughts are the product of the yarn, the beers, the always good company and good conversation: 1) Dill does NOT belong in clam chowder. Gross. 2) I like knitting in bars. I like it when there's music, and food and beers, and maybe even the Bloody Sock game playing on the television. However, as the night goes on, and the music gets turned up to accomodate the people who are getting drunk and aren't interested in quality* conversation, it does not make for the best of places for group knitting, and probably means it's time for me to go home. 3) When I'm knitting, I'm aware that the louder music/hard time hearing thing means it's time to go home. This is generally not the case when the only thing I'm doing with my hands at a bar is holding a bottle or two of Miller Lite. I should probably bring my knitting out with me on the weekends, and save myself a hangover. 4) Size 2 needles look evil (despite cute socks in progress). I'm saying it here first, if Elisa goes blind in the next couple of months, it's from knitting in a dark bar with those things. 5) I've been so completely off-kilter this week with the whole engagement thing, that I paid my overpaid my portion of the bill last night by $20. That's because even though I calculated what I owed, I put in all the money in my wallet (???). When we were all *dumbfounded* at why there was an extra $24 including tip, I just sat there in la-la land like I have been all week. Until, of course, I miss the bus, and end up hailing a cab to haul my sorry ass to Southie. How do you think the $ mystery was solved? That's right, when I go to pay the cabbie, and realize I have $2 in my wallet. Mortified and feeling like a complete moron, I plead the cabbie to drive me to the nearest ATM, and try to convince him I'm not going to run off without paying. Just a little piece of humble pie, served warm. 6) Everyone's got issues with their Moms. Not enough hugs, too many hugs, crazy role model, whatever it is, you can't avoid it, because she's the one who gave birth to you. I think part of growing up is how you learn to deal with it. 7) The Clap is way cool. Check out Wendy's. 8) Weddings come in all shapes and sizes, just like the people who plan them. In a half an hour of conversation I was introduced to a world of options that I never knew possible, all of which will help us escape the Commercial Wedding Package, which is like a freakin albatross of perceptions. The Commercial Wedding Package gives me the same bad feeling inside as when I look at fashion magazines, but 10 times over. 9) I thought I would finish, or at least get close to finishing the hat last night. Ha. *By quality I mean any conversation more complicated than the drunken laughter shouting thing.

The Making of an Honest Woman

2005-02-07T11:09:00.000-05:00

Hey Wendy, how's this for a Monday morning song? Goin' to the chapel And we're gonna get ma-a-arried Goin' to the chapel And we're gonna get ma-a-arried Gee, I really love you And we're gonna get ma-a-arried Goin' to the chapel of love....... Talk about a song getting stuck in your head. 2 days now. It's been in my head since Saturday night, when Eric asked me to marry him.
Have I told you how much I love this man? I've spent about an hour trying to craft this post, explain how happy I am and why I am filled with joy at the thought of spending the rest of my life with Eric, but honestly, the past day has been so wonderful, exciting, crazy busy and just a tad blurry, that I'm just trying to absorb it all. I'm sitting here at work, attempting to type (for work, emails and this post), but every, oh, 3 seconds or so, I find myself gazing down at my hand and completely losing myself into my thoughts. I feel so incredibly blessed and thankful and I don't think anything I write here this morning could express this adequately. It's these feelings that inspire poetry, and I haven't the grace with words as the Muse, so we'll leave it at this for now. I love you Eric.

Sundry

2005-02-04T17:03:00.000-05:00

Good news! Thanks to several people in the comments and through the Boston SNB list, I have developed a technique* to get my contract color tension straightened out. I really appreciate everyone that took the time to respond, and tonight I have a quiet night planned for ripping back to the beginning of that section and finishing the hat using *nice* and *even* yellow contract Vs. With luck, I'll meet my deadline of finishing the product this weekend... you know, I'm just jinxing myself. Fingers crossed, maybe I'll get it done. Last night I was really happy that I was able to see my old roommate and dear friend's band (Static of the Gods) play at a dive bar in Somerville. I've been watching Jen play for going on 4 years now, and it's always just a fantastic time. I really admire her, and her's is a story I will tell another time not quite before I'm trying to leave on a Friday afternoon.... Good times, late night, groggy morning. Speaking of good music, Elisa tagged me for the meme (I have no idea where that name came from, anyone?), and so here goes: 1) Total amount of music files on your computer: 57 hours worth. 2) The last CD you bought: Keane: Hopes and Fears 3) What is the last song you listened to before reading this message? Talk Show Host – Radiohead 4) Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you: Only songs that brought me to that place inside my soul made the cut for this. The Obvious Child - Paul Simon Angeles - Elliot Smith Anna Begins - Counting Crows Don't Panic - Coldplay Elias - Dispatch 5) What 3 people are you going to pass the baton to and why? Jean - because I'm really curious about what music she listens to Chris - because I have a feeling she listens to really cool music I know that's only two, but it's 5pm and I've got to go! Thought this was fun....

You're To Kill a Mockingbird!
by Harper Lee
Perceived as a revolutionary and groundbreaking person, you have changed the minds of many people. While questioning the authority around you, you've also taken a significant amount of flack. But you've had the admirable guts to persevere. There's a weird guy in the neighborhood using dubious means to protect you, but you're pretty sure it's worth it in the end. In the end, it remains unclear to you whether finches and mockingbirds get along in real life.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

*The technique? Don't pull so hard. ;)

A Cry for Help

2005-02-02T15:26:00.000-05:00

Remember this?
Yeah, looks the same as it did 2 weeks ago. I swear it's not for lack of knitting (although I haven't told you about the legwarmer I knit during the snowstorm, let's just forget about that for now...) I really have been working on it. The hat that is. Problem is, I can't get the stupid thing my self-designed pattern to work right. And so I knit, and rip, and try again a little differently. Repeat ad nauseum. Here's my dilemma.** I'm trying to do a color pattern where: Row 1: in MC, knit 3, in CC, knit 1, repeat until end of round Row 2 - 4: knit in main color entire round. Repeat rows 1 - 4 until end. Seems easy, right? Not so much. Every time I try this, what are supposed to look like V's (the contrasting color stitches), end up looking either like apostrophes (") because the yarn gets pulled apart too much in between stitches, or they look like single apostrophes (') because I tried to twist the stitch to make the bottom of the V stay together, but it still pulls one side so that it's covered by the other side of the V. Does this make sense? Does anyone know a way to make the CC stitches stay at a normal tension so they look just like the stitches in the MC? This doesn't seem like it should be as hard as it is.... If anyone has any insight, I would really appreciate it. Also, I'll be at the Southie group tonight (around 7ish), so if anyone has any ideas there, I will definitely be bringing the hat. And here's the good news. The sooner I can get through this hat, the sooner I'll be back to happy knitting*** where I will be enthusiastically telling stories and showing lots of pictures of UFOs/FOs alike. So, please, I beg you, help me. My yarn sanity**** is weighing in the balance. ** Apologies to those of you who subscribe to the Boston SNB list, I posted a similar email earlier today pleading for help with this. *** This would be the fun sort of knitting where you can pick and choose what you want to knit, you can work on multiple things at a time, and generally there's not a Drop Dead Line because what you're knitting isn't for something important, say, um, like a book. I've got a little over a week to figure this out, or, actually I don't know what happens if you fail to deliver a project for a book. Do you just get blacklisted as a designed forever? Or do they do something really awful, like take away all my yarn... nah, they couldn't do that. (Right??) **** What the hell is yarn sanity? (Other than an oxymoron.)

January's Down, Bring on February

2005-01-28T16:52:00.000-05:00

This week has been about survival. Surviving 3 feet of snow and 8 foot drifts. Surviving -10 degree weather and -20 degree wind chills. Surviving the blahs that have come to define January. The good news was that our office was shut down for 2 days this week due to the storms. The bad news was that it was too awful outside to enjoy it. Oh, and that I've been swamped at work as a result. I'm happy to have survived, but a little embarrassed that it's generally because wild horses would have to drag me out of my long johns, and when I come home from work I hibernate underneath layers comprised by a goose down lap duvet, a woven blanket, and a fleece blanket. There has been little knitting, because the extreme cold causes my joints to become arthritic. Seriously. I've got bumps in my middle knuckle that would make you recoil in horror. But after walking home from work *twice* (40 minutes) because the buses have been seriously remiss in their regularly scheduled duties, I am fully confident when I say to February: Bring It On. I can take you. After this week, I can take anything.* I'm off for fajitas and margaritas, in celebration of the 20 degree temperature swing today, and the heat wave that will be this weekend. (Translation: When I was waiting for the bus this morning it was -1, this afternoon's high was 19, wind chill of 10. This made me giddy. Tomorrow is supposed to be 33 degrees, and I can barely contain my jubilation! I'm going to walk to the grocery store in a mere fleece! Winter fury, I laugh in your face! Ha ha ha!) Happy weekend all, and happy knitting! * Really, my bravado is weak when compared to what others have had to go through this past week. Ms. Melanie in particular has gone through way worse, and yet managed to post all week, and not just about the horrors that are January. I give her props, and so should you.

Wounded Ego, Wounded Knee

2005-01-20T11:41:00.000-05:00

This morning, I was 'that girl'. You know, that girl who falls flat on her face when getting off the bus? Yeah, that's the one. I stepped on some snow that I foolishly assumed hid the curb, and when I put all of my weight on *thin air* I went down hard, spread eagle on the sidewalk. Rolled over, looked at the sky, caught my breath, and tried hard to not laugh and cry at the same time. Fortunately, I was able to give it a good laugh while I hobbled into my building only partially covered in the sidewalk sludge leftover from last night's snow. I'm trying to convince myself that a bacon bleu cheese burger would help me feel better? Don't you think it would? I certainly do. MMMmmmmmmm..... Bacon blue cheese burger.......... Before I start drooling all over my desk, I wanted to show you all this:
Let me say this now for the record. I am extraordinarily glad that I decided to do this project. Not only did it introduce me to circulars, but also to 2 color knitting. Given the projects I've been planning on starting, I know it would have been a long while before I tried either of those. I had a lot of fun following the chart, and I think incorporating the second color made the knitting a lot more interesting than your normal run of the mill hat. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. It seems very intimidating (at least it did to me), but really it's a lot of fun. I'm off to grab a burger. Happy Thursday!

Delivering on Promises

2005-01-19T16:31:00.000-05:00

For Elisa, who has asked repeatedly to see the hat, and to narrowly deliver on my promise to post a picture of it when I reached the 'intarsia' section:
The good news is, I don't think I need to do this chart as intarsia. The bad news is, it's more like fair isle, or I guess, just straight up 2 color knitting. I might have to rip back that row, because I'm not sure if I pulled the second color too tight as I was carrying it, which will contort the hat and stitches in funny ways once someone actually tries it on. I have a feeling there will be a lot of ripping back on this hat. I've already ripped/started over twice. Also, I whipped out the MSPaint and MSPhotoEditor, and somehow came up with these buttons: They'll have to do until I get my hands on some better graphic software. I've given them their own little section in the sidebar, and I hope you'll all feel free to save them to your own server, and put up a link on your blogs. I'm heading to the Southie SNB tonight, and hopefully will have some good progress on the hat to show for it (in addition to the always fabulous conversation AND a soothing cup o tea). Hooray for short weeks!

A Long Weekend

2005-01-18T16:49:00.000-05:00

Friday - 4pm: One of the reasons I love my job is that the publishing industry offers all sorts of random opportunities to meet interesting people. For example, Tony LaRussa just happened to be hanging out just down the hall from my cube last Friday afternoon. I'm not sure why, but I think he may have just been killing time until the ALA events over the weekend, or maybe for a meeting with the Red Sox owners. Who knows. Fact is, he was just chilling in the conference room. Not only that, but he just happened to have the official MLB score cards from Games 1 - 4 of the 2004 World Series. You know, the first Series the Sox won in 86 years? I'm not kidding. And so, I decided I should hang out with him. There were probably about 5 to 10 of us in there for the last hour or so of the day, and we sat around asking questions about the Series, the offseason moves around baseball, and about Tony's experiences in general. I have to say, he was super nice, and seemed to not mind the Red Sox fans who were (subdued but) gleeful about his team's (shameful) loss during the Series, and I'm not just saying that because he was gracious enough to sign a baseball for me with a personalized message. No, I'm not biased at all. Now I only need to corner Theo Epstein (with a baseball, get your minds out of the gutter!), and I have a start to my Red Sox memorabilia Hall of Fame. Here's a shout-out to Tony's charity ARF, short for the Animal Rescue Foundation. Tony and his wife currently have 4 dogs and 12 cats, 2 of which are former abused circus poodles. He is auctioning off the scorecards to raise money for the foundation, and has organized and published a celebrity calendar to do the same. So next time when you're looking for a way to help out our furry friends, please keep ARF in mind. Friday - 7pm: After 2 rounds of margaritas on the rocks, with a side of fajitas, Eric, Kim & I are primed and ready to see Sideways. You know, the indie film that came out nowhere and has been nominated for all the pre-curser awards? 2 hours later we head to our local dive bar with a deck of cards and after a few hands unanimously agree that it deserves all the hype. Get thee to the theatre. Saturday - 9am: Oooh. Not ready to get up. Eric's been up 2 hours and done all the laundry. He is a saint. Saturday - Noon: Go for a run. Pain. Pain. Lungs burn. Pain. Cold. Saturday - 1pm: Late to pick up rental. Dash (hobble) to work to send an email abandoned when I got wind that Tony was in the office. Realize that running for the first time in 3 months was probably a bad idea the day before 1st ski day of the season. Saturday - 3pm: On our way to NH!!! Yay!!! Kim's in the car too, we twisted her arm with the 2nd margarita. Saturday - 9pm: After a few beers, my youngest brother pursuades (begs) us to take him out into the 7 degree weather and go tubing at Loon Mountain. Good times had by all, despite the sheer terror involved in flying uncontrollably down a mountain with one's face only inches from the ice hardened snow. Saturday - Midnight: We return from tubing with only a few bruises and some battered boots as damage. I think we got off lucky. Sunday - 11am: Once upon a time there was a mountain that reached up and in one fell swoop wrenched all the daring and confidence from my skis and my skiing soul. On that fateful day, I arrived at the mountain with a new set of skis in hand, and I left with my arm in a sling and my Dad driving like a bat out of hell to the Littleton Regional Hospital. 45 minutes away. I was broken. I became fearful of the slopes. No longer did I embrace the silky sliding of skis against the snow, but rather I imagined that every bit of powder hid a sheet of ice. Every time I turned I imagined my skis coming out from under me. I feared losing control, and I imagined every possible traumatic result. I arrived at the bottom of any challenging run shaking and near to tears. Until this day. Like every lesson in humility, this one was bound to be forgotten. On this day, I arrived at the Mountain that Broke Me determined to throw caution to the wind and laugh in its face. And I did. I went to the spot where I fell, and I did a little swoosh. I worked my way up to it, but I did several black diamonds, and I raced my father and my brother to the end. And for the first time in 3 years, I enjoyed skiing. It was glorious. Sunday - 4:45pm: Kickoff! Sunday - 8pm: Take that Peyton! Monday - 9am: After a quick stop at the Dunkin D's, we journey back to Boston. On the way home, we are lucky enough to catch a station that played Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. It was, of course, awe-inspiring. We get back in time to take care of all the mundane household chores that need to get done for the week (um, food and clean clothes) and then to nurse our aching muscles for the rest of the day. Truly, there is nothing better than resting when you are tired from a weekend full of physical exertion. All in all, I got about a half of a row finished on the hat. Once I get past the ribbing, and to the intarsia/fair isle part (which better be tonight), I'll post a picture. Honest to God.

Getting to Know You 2005

2005-01-18T11:35:00.000-05:00

"Welcome to the NEW, 2005 EDITION of getting to know your friends. Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun. Just copy (not forward) this entire e-mail and paste into a new e-mail that you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, *including* the person that sent it to you." As a way of buying time to put together a coherent post detailing this past weekend, I'm posting my answers to the Getting to Know Your Friends 2005 email, from which the above is the introductory paragraph. Enjoy! 1. What is your full name? JKC - no need to give Google any ammo. 2. What color pants are you wearing? Which pair - the work pants or the long johns? 3. What are you listening to right now? Cat Stevens on my computer being drowned out office noise. 4. What is the last thing you ate? Insta Oatmeal. (I have a Add-Hot-Water theory too.) 5. Do you wish on stars? Not often enough. 6. How is the weather right now? Freakin' cold. 7. What do you do that is better than anyone else? Get excited and enthused over silly little things. 8. Do you like the person who sent you this? Like, Respect and Admire. I mean, have you SEEN her Sophie bags?? ;) 9. How are you today? A little sore. (Tubing and skiing stories to come) 10. Favorite drink? Chocolate milk. 11. Favorite alcoholic drink? Gin & Tonic. 12. Favorite sport? Baseball. Go SOX!!!!! 13.Hair color? Brown. Lighter in the summer, darker in the winter, but more and more I wish it were hot pink. 14. Eye color? Blue 15. Do you wear contacts? Yes. Because my eyes *suck* 16. Where would you like to go on your next vacation? Europe. All of it, for two months with only backpacks, a rail pass, and a good map. 17. Favorite Month? May. For all the promise of an upcoming summer. 18. Favorite food? I haven't met a food I didn't like. 19. Last movie you watched? Shrek 2. 20. Favorite Day of the year? Memorial Day. 21. What do you do to vent anger? I make a scrunchy face and stomp my foot, storm around for a bit, and pick fights until I feel silly. 22. What was your favorite toy as a child? The 64 pack of Crayolas. And the living room walls were never the same. 23. Summer or winter? Spring. Spring makes my toes curl with pleasure. Too bad we don't have one in NE. 24. Hugs or Kisses? Hugs. Lots of them. 25. Chocolate or vanilla? I'm not sure, but I think I might single handedly keep Lindt chocolate in business. 27. Do you want your friends to email you back (regarding this email chain)? Of course. 28. Who is the most likely to respond? The ones who aren't in Public Accounting. 29. Who is least likely to respond? The ones who are in Public Accounting. 30. Living arrangements? Eric & I live in a Sin Shack by the Sea. 31. When was the last time you cried? This is a little embarrasing, but I cried while watching Queer Eye the other night. It was a real tear-jerker. 32. What is under your bed? My tupperware full of stash, Eric's tupperware full of socks, and the leaf to our kitchen table. 33. What did you do last night? Recovered. (By means of snuggling on the couch and watching a movie.) 34. Favorite smells? The smell of the sun hitting the dewey grass on a spring morning. Green things growing. Fresh brewed coffee. 35. Who inspires you? 1) My father 2) Eric. 3) Kate. 4) All my friends. The reasons are all too long to list. 36. What are you afraid of? Creepy crawly bugs. 37. Plain, buttered or salted popcorn? Salt, butter, a little more salt. 38. Favorite car? The Jetta 39. Favorite flower? Tulips 40. Number of keys on your key ring? 6. 3 are house keys, and 3 are for NH. 41. Can you juggle? I can get it started, but I can never keep it going. 42. Favorite day of the week? Saturday. 43. What did you do on your last birthday? Double surprise birthday party thrown by the ever wonderful Eric, with help from my lifelong best friend Kate, and then an uber-family b-day party the next day. It was the most kick-ass birthday ever. 44. Do you have a donor card? Yes ma'am. That's it for now folks. Stay tuned for the story of How Jackie Returned to the Mountain that Broke Her and Lived to Tell the Tale.

What Goes Around...

2005-01-14T14:33:00.000-05:00

Comes Around. And the Flu's been going around. There was no avoiding it. Despite all the knocking on wood going on around here (thank you Jean especially, for the banging, I'm pretty sure it helped me stave it off for as long as I did), I was taken out of the count for the majority of this week. There was no knitting. There was no reading. I got a package of yarn in the mail, and I didn't even have the energy or heart to open it. It's true. I knew I was better when I got my appetite back yesterday. So, after I harfed down the biggest, greasiest bacon bleu cheese burger in town*, I ripped open that package of yarn and started the Hat Project. The very coolest thing in the world about this project is that, because I was so worried about the finished product, I decided to give circular needles a try. (I couldn't risk the uneven joins that sometimes happen with dpns.) I don't know why I waited so long.** I *love* circular needles. I know that millions of people have already embraced the circular needles for their ease of use and general superiority over the straights, but when I knit my first round last night it felt like I had made a world changing discovery for knitters everywhere, and I'd like at least a day to bask in the glory of this feeling. Because the circulars really do feel that good. Although that might be my thigh talking, which usually takes the brunt of the RH needle's force every time I make a stitch on straights. Maybe I'm just tired of being poked. Whatever it is, I'm a fan. But enough about the circulars for now. This weekend marks a milestone in my life. A big milestone. I've been out of school for 5 years, and this is the first time I have a 3 day weekend in between December and May. For that matter, it's the first time I haven't had to work every weekend from December to May. Isn't that fantastic?? I'm so excited. And so, this means of course that this is the first time since college that I've been able to go up to NH with my family for a normal ski weekend. There will be football. There will be skiing/snowboarding. There will be knitting and sleeping in. There will hopefully be a supreme asskicking of the Colts, and their pretty boy QB Dan Marino... or Payton Manning, whatever his name is with those flashy stats and no Championship. That's right Payton, I'm talking to you. And so, as always, I hope you all have a happy and safe weekend, and if I'm not a total lazy bum, I'll have pictures on Tuesday. Go Pats!!!!! *Even thinking about it makes my mouth water. It's that good. I'm fighting the urge to go grab another one right now. **Okay, it might have something to do with the Harlot always talking about how much she loves dpns. And me, being the inexperienced knitter took the Harlot's word for law. (Including that it is possible to knit a pair of mittens in a day. Or a complicated cable sweater in 2 weeks. And if she can do things like that, is it hard to take her word that dpns are better? That's what I thought.)

I Need to Apologize

2005-01-07T16:32:00.000-05:00

* to everyone who left encouraging comments about the design for the book. I really appreciate your supportive comments and I've been unable to thank you personally yet, let alone even post something within a decent period of time. I'm sorry. Maybe I'll make it up to you all by posting about my journey into learning intarsia, on a deadline, for a book. I'm sure it will be funny for you, although it probably won't be funny for me (okay, I'll probably be laughing my ass off, but that'll be after I've had enough wine to ease me though it). I might even try to get in here this weekend so I can have internet time that isn't directly related to me being on break from work, and then I can spend a little quality time with all your blogs. * to JenLa, the Knotty Girls, for being completely oblivious to this. A little bird just told me about it, and quite frankly, I was totally surprised. It may be from before I was all hopped up on bloglines, so I must have missed it, but I appreciate the mention. Maybe I'll whip out my super high tech clip art/MS Paint tools and scrap together a button. I'm a financial analyst, they don't give me the fun software here, but I'll do my best. * to Eric, who has been totally neglected this week, as I spent all my free time devouring the Plot Against America for the new KnitOneReadToo group that I've joined, due to the good influences of Ms. Bookish. And any other free time I spent knitting. (Good times at the Southie SNB this week - Nicole, are you there?) * to Eric's friends, because I have corrupted their girlfriends into being obsessive yarn junkies, just like me. The boys are out on the town tonight, but I think that they're just going to end up consoling each other for becoming yarn widows. Eric will warn them about yarn being everywhere, field trips to yarn shops, finding stray needles in the couch, and being adorned with all sorts of woolly goodness, which they may or may not appreciate. They will mourn what they have lost (a house free of stash) but appreciate that they have each other. Meanwhile, their girlfriends are going to be joining Ms. Bookish, Ms. Muse and Ms. Keiko over at my place tonight to have a yarn party. And my evil plan is working. Sadly, that's all I have for now. Work is very busy, and I don't even have my lunches right now to get my blog lovin' (reference #1). I do have all sorts of yarn projects bouncing around in my head, some of which should start to show up on this site over the next few weeks (hat project aside). Have a great weekend everyone!

Catching Up

2005-01-04T17:24:00.000-05:00

A wise woman once wrote about the difficulties of posting after a long time away, and so I see no recourse except to follow in her footsteps and jump right back in bullet point style. Point the First: A Very JKC Christmas
This is my mother's side of the family, about 9:30 on Christmas Evening, with whom we almost always spend Christmas. (This is not to say we wouldn't like to spend it with my father's family. It's just that we can barely fit them all in the house at once, as there are about 50 of them. You should see the Easter Egg Hunt.) At this point there has been much eating of food, drinking of wine (and Coors Light, the house beer of choice), playing of board games, and dancing of the wiggle dance in the kitchen (reference the two little ones in front). Good times all around. Point the Second: Why My Dad Rocks On Christmas Eve, my father asked me where a good yarn store was, asked me if I wanted to go there as part of our annual CE with the Big JC (Dad's annual last minute shopping trip) and then took us to the yarn store, hung out in there with my brothers while I picked out yarn, and wait, get this... ***saw what I picked out, and asked me if I thought I needed some "backup" yarn*** Yes, Dad, I would be happy to pick out some "backup" yarn (!?!?) I had to take deep breaths to contain my enthusiasm. It's not everyday your father takes you to buy yarn, and then urges you to pick out *more*. Point the Third: The Jetta Once upon a time I owned a car. I loved every bolt, axl and gear in that car, but unfortunately, I had to give the car up in order to afford yarn. (not true, but sadly close) Luckily for me, I gave up the car to the handsome young man in the photo above (reference red sweater) my brother Tommy. Because of this, every once in awhile when I've been especially good, or when my family goes away on a trip, I get to use the car that I love when they're gone. This is usually a good thing. Except when we get the first snow storm of the year. I shoveled 10 to 12 inches off that car, and it was not fun. Point the Fourth: Circles Despite the snow, thanks to Point the Third, I was able to go to Circles our local knitting salon and I bought the most delicious autumn colored yarn. With it I have started the wrist-warmers from SNB Nation. You know, the ones with the cool vine pattern up the front? Notice that I am not bringing up the fact that I still haven't finished Tommy's Irish Flag scarf that I was supposed to give him for Christmas..... I am completely in denial. Point the Fifth: The Flu Eric got it. He was down for 5 days. I'm still standing strong. It's been 5 days since he's been better. Knock on Wood. No, I mean it. Knock. Now. Point the Sixth: Vickie Howell and Me Okay, I can't keep it in any longer. I found out last week that the hat design I submitted for Vickie Howell's new book was accepted, and they asked me to make it. Um, can anyone say Holy Crap? I better learn some intarsia quick.... (Yes, I designed a hat with intarsia letters. No, I have never done intarsia. I have about 3 weeks to figure it out. This is where I vomit in my mouth.)

The Stuff of Life

2004-12-30T13:00:00.000-05:00

As the death toll in Asia leaps to 150,000 I can't help but feel extraordinarily frivolous in my little world of great joys (new yarn, Christmas morning, singing with my brothers, I have the car this week!) and minor burdens (the flu, shoveling out the car, going to the laundromat, yuck). Which conflicts with my feelings that these great joys and minor burdens are exactly what I should be embracing and enjoying, because I am lucky enough to have a life with such things in it. And so I lament and I rejoice, and such is the stuff of life. I am thankful for all the blessings in my life and especially for the wonderful year that has been 2004 - which brought an interesting and sane new job, a warm and happy home with Eric, and last but not least, knitting - an activity that has provided me a much needed creative outlet while at the same time opening my world to so many amazing people. I hope all of you have a happy and safe New Year, and that you embrace and enjoy life's great joys and minor burdens. (I have been on mini-vacation this week, and will return to normal e-communication at the beginning of next week - no internet from this afternoon until Monday)

Brown Paper Packages

2004-12-21T16:37:00.000-05:00

2 more boxes shipped today - whooHOOO!!! One had the Kidsilk Cloud scarf in it, and the other had the Umbie Hat, the French Flag Scarf, and other sundry items knitting and non-knitting related. Amazingly enough, even though the line was literally out the door, the post office people were helpful and efficient, and it wasn't much of a wait. Who would've guessed? Good job Back Bay annex post office! (Gotta give props where they're due, you know?) Be that as it may, I still have 1 scarf to finish and 1 scarf to start. Here's the stripy scarf in progress for my youngest brother Jimmy. I'm going for the long rugby scarf look (there will be fringe added at the ends too):
I think those ends are going to be a bitch to weave in, but with some of the chocolate treats from this weekend, I think I'll get through it. Those chocolate treats could get me through knitting that entire scarf while weaving in ends for each individual stitch, they're that good. Speaking of chocolate treats, Thriftgoddess requested in the comments that I post the recipe to the chocolate espresso cookies. And since I aim to please, here goes: ______________________________________ CHOCOLATE ESPRESSO COOKIES 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped 2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces 3 large eggs 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar 2 1/4 teaspoons finely ground dark-roast coffee beans, such as Italian-roast 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/3 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup walnuts Preheat oven to 350°F and grease 2 large heavy baking sheets. In a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt unsweetened chocolate, 1 cup chocolate chips, and butter, stirring until smooth, and remove top of double boiler or bowl from heat. In a bowl with an electric mixer beat eggs, sugar, and ground coffee on high speed until thick and pale and mixture forms a ribbon when beaters are lifted, about 3 minutes, and beat in chocolate mixture. Into mixture sift in flour, baking powder, and salt and stir until just combined. Stir in remaining chocolate chips and walnuts. Drop batter by heaping tablespoons about 2 inches apart onto baking sheets (this is a little messy) and bake in batches in middle of oven 8 to 10 minutes, or until puffed and cracked on top. Cool cookies in baking sheets 1 minute and transfer to racks to cool completely. _______________________________________ Now, I was all intimidated by the melting of chocolate part, but really, it was a cinch. I don't have any special equipment, and I've never melted chocolate before (I'm just learning how to bake) so, anyone who wants to put a little effort into the baking should be able to make this fairly easily. (Effort meaning more than opening a premade package of cookie dough, which is what I've considered baking in the past.) And this is what you've all been waiting on the edges of your seats for, I'm sure. The Best Christmas Present Ever, or the Reason I Might Never Leave the House Again is this:
If you think this looks like a regular old lap blanket, I assure you, you couldn't be more wrong. This is a Lap Duvet, and basically it's a mini down comforter sized perfectly for lounging on the couch while knitting. And, when it's -2 degrees with the wind chill like it was here yesterday, this Lap Duvet is a pretty handy thing to have around. I love you Lap Duvet. We're going to be best friends forever and ever, I just know it.

Holy Moses that's a lotta Scarves

2004-12-20T16:26:00.000-05:00

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It's been one week since my last blog. Go ahead child, confess your sins. Um, that's it Father, it's been one week since my last blog. Oh. -------------------------------------------- Corny yes, but I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. That's what my Catholic upbringing has ingrained in my head everytime I think about how long it's been since I last did something. It's got a good rhythm to it, don'tchya think, and some good alliteration too. (And I bet that's why they picked it those sneaky little devils....) Anyway, the fact remains that it's been a week since I last posted. There's been a lot going on here at the Project, not least of all the mad knitting of scarves. Not just any scarves, mind you, but a wide range of mind-numbing gift scarves. I've got K2P2 ribbing up to my eyeballs, I've got garter stitch out the wazoo, hell, we even have a French Flag garter stitch scarf knit with Red Heart Acrylic. That's what I get for making fun of the Church, right? It may well be worse than eternal damnation. Not surprisingly, my speed and endurance as a knitter has increased lightyears this past week, because for the love of God I just want to be done with the scarves. Wouldn't that be motivation enough for anyone? And I'm completely ignoring the fact that I pretty much designed every scarf I'm knitting and so it's my own damn fault that I'm bored to tears. But, fortunately there have been many things preventing my knitting soul from shriviling away to nothing. Like this: Okay, I'll have to explain, because my horrible photography is getting in the way again. This, my dears, is the best chocolate on all of God's Green Earth. It was very generously sent to me by the kind hearted Scottish Lamb, of Fair Isle vest and German Chocolate Goddess renown, when she found out my crippling weakness is Lindt Chocolate. The chocolate covered almonds are in some sort of spiced chocolate, and if you can ever get your hands on a package, buy it immediately, I promise it will be one of the best things you could ever treat yourself to. Thank you Jean! (And Wendy, if you look closely, you'll see a blurry chocolate bar behind the bags of chocolate..... I wonder what kind of chocolate it is? It looks like a special kind. Hmmm, I bet it's really delicious...........) (hee hee - that's payback for the Monday morning songs......) And these are what are keeping a little bit of spring sunshine in my life right now: From the ever wonderful and amazingly sweet Eric, who had them delivered to my office on Friday as an early anniversary present. He's the bestest. :) Next to the tulips, you will see one of the Christmas Gift Scarves, this one by far being the least boring, because it's a combination of Rowan Kidsilk and Some Other Silk blend, and it knits up like a cloud. Mum's the word on who this is for, because she might be reading. I was really happy with how it turned out. And in between dinner, a show out on the town, and our early Christmas celebration, I finished knitting the French Flag scarf, and have almost completed the scarf for my youngest brother. Which means that after tomorrow, I'll only have one more scarf to finish before Christmas (the Irish Flag scarf, except this time the whole Flag Thing will be intentional). And last, but definitely not least, are two of the future scarf recipients: My two younger brothers, circa Easter 2004. I'd knit anything they asked me to (and they asked for the scarves, which just makes it all worth it in my book :) Tomorrow: Pictures of more completed scarves, and the Best Christmas Gift Ever, also known as The Reason I May Never Leave the House Again. Stay tuned.

Viva la France!

2004-12-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

I admit it. I've been dragging my feet a little on this scarf I've been knitting. I can't help it. I'm using Red Heart (yuck), the acrylic's getting squeaky, and even the adorable plea of my 5 year old nephew isn't enough to get me excited about how it's turning out. Behold: The French Flag Scarf. The sad part is, it's supposed to be an American scarf. (The exact request was: "If I had a scawf Aunt Jackie, I would want it stwiped red, white and blue, just like the fwag. Can you make scawfs that look wike the fwag?" How can you resist such cuteness??) And here I am, knitting the poor kid the French Flag. It's driving me nuts. Not that there's anything wrong with the French Flag. It's just that the French Flag isn't what I was going for, you know? Anyway, these have been helping me feel better: These are double chocolate espresso cookies with walnuts, and they are to die for. Just absolutely and completely sinfully delicious. And these are more just waiting to go into the oven: The idea was to bake a bunch of cookies to help spread the holiday cheer, but now I am surrounded by mounds of chocolate cookies, 5 tupperware containers full, and there's two logs of pecan cookies in the fridge yet to be baked. Lord, I am not worthy to resist such temptations. If I come into work tomorrow with chocolate smeared all over my face and a wild gleam in my eyes, don't say I didn't warn you. And last, but definitely not least, here is my growing pile of active stash (doesn't inlude the stash properly stored in tupperware under the bed.) This space is not designated stash space because this is supposed to be the magazine basket. I don't know how this happened, really, I don't. I tried to explain that to Eric, but I still had to promise to have it all cleaned up by Christmas. T minus 12.....

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

2004-12-11T10:52:00.000-05:00

This post is brought to you by the power of Eric's laptop. WhooHoo!! I have internet at home this weekend!!!! *happy jackie dance* I want to apologize to everyone if I made your bloglines go crazy yesterday, with all the re-publishing and no real posts. I ended up having a bit of a free day, and I got sucked into modifying my template, for say, like 6 hours. The dark background had been bothering me for awhile*, but I never had the chunk of time necessary to do something about it. Oh, and by the way, have you ever sat down at the computer, and been so engrossed in what you're doing that you look up 3 hours later and realize you haven't moved the entire time? It's like a black hole....... And well, if bloglines didn't pick up on it, then, you can just ignore the above. I also wanted to thank everyone for their suggestions for beginner knitting projects. It seemed the prevailing favorites were hats and/or baby items, and as it turns out, the hat won, with the baby umbie hat(scroll down for picture) as a close second. My friend decided to try her hand at the hat pattern from the original SNB Books - the one with stripes that's knit flat (circular knitting was a little overwhelming for her at this point, and I can completely understand why.) But, I'm thinking that after reading through the SNB Book, and finishing her first project, she'll have a lot more confidence about what she can tackle. I was really impressed, she knit a large swatch of stockinette and garter using only a photocopy summary of what casting on, knitting and purling were (meant as a refresher for people who had knit in the past). So, last night was a ton of fun, and hopefully I was able to give her a little guidance on how to go forward. And now I gotta break free of the computer so I can get off the couch and actually do things today. (Like bake cookies!!) I've already watched an entire movie, while browsing the internet and lounging on the couch.... it's just so hard to resist the sucking power of the internet....... Hope everyone has a great weekend! *it's still in progress - I hope to customize over time.

The Grand Master Plan is Working

2004-12-09T11:06:00.000-05:00

(Please note, I ramble on for awhile about random things, but I really need some suggestions, so if you're not interested in my extraorinarily long lead-in, just skip on down to the end.) If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time (or if you know me in person) it's pretty obvious that I'm pretty hung up on coming up with unifying theories and grand master plans. For example: The Universal Food Theory - Any food can be made better by adding one of the following three ingredients: Bacon, Cheese or Chocolate. Seriously, think about it. The Soup Theory - Soup is the best meal because you can get all combinations of food groups in one bowl. When else are you going to serve a dinner plate with 6 different types of veggies, especially if you're cooking for 1? The Soup Theory is related to: The Banana Theory - Bananas are the best food to have handy in the shoulder bag you carry around. They have their own biodegradable packaging, and do a fantastic job of warding off hunger, while being tasty and healthy. (I have a lot of food theories, I won't list them all here, but others of note include the best way to construct fajitas and the perfect tuna melt. I seriously have put a lot of thought into these things. I like finding the best way to do something.) The Europe Theory - Europe in its quest to unite and socialize is going to cause (is causing) the individual sovereign states to lose the identities that (used to) keep them strong and unique, and eventually (are) sink(ing) into a quagmire, resulting in an overhaul of Europe as we know it. It's just a feeling I have. The Women and Marriage Theory - Misunderstood feminism has actually caused women to lose their feminine identity and has helped create a selfish urban generation of women behaving like men behaving badly, and ultimately has caused a boatload of unmarried 30 somethings who don't understand why they haven't been able to have a lasting, stable relationship. I have lived this, and I see the wreckage caused by misplaced feminism all around me. There's probably a million sub-theories all over this topic. In addition to the Theories are the Grand Master Plans: Grand Master Plan to have Many Many Children - This serves many purposes, not least to have many people to eat the baked goods up quickly. You may have seen reference to this in my 100 things list. And of course the: Grand Master Knitting Plan - If I convert all my girl friends to knitting, then we can hang out and knit while all the boys get together and do boy things, and I will no longer be subject to whining about video games. And the whole point is, the Grand Master Knitting Plan is coming to fruition. You know how I gave all the girls little knit kits over Thanksgiving? Well, I got an email from one of Eric's friends girlfriend yesterday saying that she had given it a try, and wanted to get together so I could show her more, and help her start her first project. WhooHoo!!! So my question is, what should be her first project? I know most people (myself included) start with scarves, but I've heard that some people think that's a bad idea given the boredom factor. And we all know that scarves can get a little tedious, and the last thing I want it for her to put a boring scarf down never to pick up knitting again. So, any suggestions?? (By the way, the Southie SNB last night was really really fun. I had such a great time with all the girls - you should see Elisa's post for more details on the evening. I'm looking forward to next week!)

Eating Crow

2004-12-08T13:54:00.000-05:00

Or, the Open Bar Gets Me Every Time. Who was I kidding? (Certainly not my liver.) Okay, I didn't have that much to drink, but we did end up having a lovely time at the Holiday Party last night. By we, I mean myself, and the ever-wonderful Eric, who braved freezing cold rain and the wrath of his boss (he's been extraordinarily busy this week, but it's a good thing) to leave work in time to make it for the last hour or so of the party. And then we ended up having such a nice time that even though we avoided the after-party and got home at a reasonable hour, there was just no knitting happening last night. Lucky for me, tonight is the 2nd Southie SNB, and I should easily be able to finish Caili's hat tonight. WhooHoo! I'm looking forward to the SNB tonight - Elisa's going to join us, and we'll have another new girl who I haven't met yet (but who had originally expressed interest in starting up the Southie group), in addition to the very cool and interesting Aimee who came last week. Yay Southie! And if you haven't already seen this blog, you should definitely check it out. In addition to knitting some of the prettiest (and amazing) fair isle, Jean has traveled to some very cool places. If you scroll through the archives, you can see pictures from her trip to Shetland (and see the source of the wool in some of her amazing sweaters) and a trip to the pyramids in Egypt (there's a pretty funny one involving a camel in there too... :) Not to mention that I think that little store in the marketplatz looks like it sells heavenly chocolates.... *grin* *doing the happy jackie dance*

Pictures as Promised

2004-12-07T14:02:00.000-05:00

Out of the 20 pictures on my camera, only 3 were in focus enough to actually post. Is anyone surprised? I didn't think so. Of these 3 loaves: ...only 1 and 1/4 remain. Eric brought the big-ass loaf (otherwise known as the Frankenstein loaf)into work yesterday, where they proceeded to devour it on the spot. Eric and I ate about a half a loaf shortly after the picture was taken, because really, how can you resist cinnamon raisin bread straight out of the oven? That's what I thought. I've been eating it for breakfast and desert, and this is why I need to have a lot of kids, cause things can't go on like this for long. (see my 100 things list - I have a master plan) And this is just one of the many reasons that I won't be having lots of kids anytime soon (my unmarried status tops the list, being po' is a close second): This is our Christmas tree, and our entire living space in our apartment (not including our bedroom, which barely fits a dresser.) It's very cozy for two, but that's the residence limit. Check out the oven mitt on the top of the tree - that's our Angel placeholder. Lovely, isn't it? The plan is to have an Angel making contest sometime before Christmas to see which one of us can make the better tree topper. Though just about anything would be better than the mitt... And last, but not least, is this: The Kidsilk Scarf. It knits up like a cloud in heaven. However, I'm going to rip the entire thing, because I think a cable/knot design (see the design on the sleeves here in the latest Knitty) would show off the yarn better. What do you think? So, last night I locked myself out of the apartment for a couple of hours while I was waiting for Eric to come home from work, and wouldn't you know that I didn't have Caili's hat with me? So, I hope to finish it tonight after my office holiday party. (And if you're wondering who in their right mind thinks they're going to get any knitting done after attending a party in the Ritz Carlton Ballroom, I'll answer that for you. Me. That's who. I certainly will not be taking advantage of the open bar, and I will most definitely be leaving at an appropriate time to come home, make dinner, and finish the hat. For God's Sake people, it's only Tuesday!)

Need Some Holiday Spirit?

2004-12-06T16:21:00.000-05:00

I actually got off my lazy bum and took some pictures this weekend, and what do you know? Of course. I left my camera at home this morning. This is ironic, because usually I always have my camera in my bag with me at all times, and I just never take pictures. Go figure. Before you all get your hopes up though, I didn't take any pictures of us at the Bookish Residence. We were too busy hanging out, eating the eats, drinking the drinks, watching the football, telling stories (about eels and many other things, though that I believe was by far the most interesting, Thanks Mike :), having some good laughs, and the girls knit in the midst of all the revelry. I'm sorry. I fully planned on taking pictures. (And by now you know that my good intentions don't always come to fruition...) But, you will see pictures of Holiday Spirit just oozing from our little corner of Southie. First off, we had a little excursion up to the Merrimac Valley and chopped ourselves down a Frasier Fir. With a little help from the nice farm men, we bundled it up, hauled it back to Southie on the roof of Ebenezer the ZipCar* and put it up in the only free corner we have. (This is a lie. There is no 'free corner'. We only have things in corners that are easier to move temporarily to the basement than other things in other corners. There was really no choice.) I love our Christmas Tree. For that matter, I love Christmas trees in general. You know that 15 minutes before you go to bed, and you sit on the couch with the all the lights off except the ones on the tree? What more do I need to say? So, hopefully tomorrow I'll get to show you a picture of the tree. Also, you'll get see the 3 loaves of cinnamon raisin bread I baked last night after returning from all the Football Fun. Please know that the only reason I baked these is because I promised Eric's boss that I would. We got home at 6pm, and after a few beers and a fully active weekend, all I wanted to do was change into my jammies, plop down on the couch, drink some tea and watch a movie. Seeing that it was my first venture into sweet yeast breads, I was really happy with the results (and that I actually ended up baking them at all.) Well, aside from the fact that one was big like Frankenstein's monster, and the other two were a little, um, undersized. You'll see. So, pictures tomorrow. I promise. *This was the official name of the car. Really.

Yarn Pile Grows, But No F.O.s

2004-12-03T15:56:00.000-05:00

South Boston, MA - In an apparent attempt to make the pre-Christmas season a knitting hell, Jackie C., a young woman living on the west side of this Boston neighborhood has decided to increase her supplies of wool and wool-blend yarns with the objective of knitting additional holiday gifts than previously planned. Despite the obvious lunacy of the manuever, some local citizens applaud her decision. "That girl, she's just a go-getter" said Mrs. McNally, a woman who works at the laundromat around the corner from Jackie's modest apartment. "She just wants to get hand-made gifts to her family, I think it's awful sweet. And you know she loves the yarn - half the time she's in here, she don't even realize the dryers done, she's so busy with whatever it is she's workin on." But in a neighborhood sometimes known for its tight knit and insular relationships, it might seem surprising that others are voicing their disapproval for all to hear. "I think she's just plain crazy. Whatdya need all the yarn for anyway? No way anyone could finish all that stuff she's plannin on doin in just 2 or 3 weeks" answered Ms. "Blue Eye" Mahoney, the counter girl at the local coffee joint where the newly inaugerated Southie SNB meets, when asked what she thought of Jackie's additional yarn purchases. Many other customers who overheard Jackie's enthusiatic ramblings about her upcoming gift ideas nodded in agreement with Ms. Mahoney, and expressed similar sentiments. Many are even wondering if Jackie has fallen prey to a common illness found in the knitting population called Capacity Dillusion Disorder (CDD) or what is commonly known as being a "Stash Addict". Back in 2001, when many newcomers started flocking to the craft, the American Knitter's Association (AKA) issued a statement warning against the disorder, and helping new knitters identify symptoms. Here is an excerpt from the statement, dated 4/1/01: ...many inexperienced knitters have not yet developed a sense of their own capacity and fall prey to knitting "idols", who lead them down a path of reckless behavior and poor judgment. Many beginners look up to such personages as "The Yarn Harlot" and Ms. Wendy Knits. These personages often make it seem perfectly reasonable to knit a full cabled sweater in two weeks, or, say, knit a pair of Latvian Mittens in just a few days. For most beginner, or even say, normal, knitters, these expectations are utterly ludicrous. We as an association would like to advise knitters that if they experience any of the following symptoms, that they should call the AKA hotline immediately. Symptoms: *You find yourself trying to figure out if you can knit a simple pair of mittens in time to wear the next day. *You think its reasonable to design and knit a sweater over the course of a few weeks WHILE trying to complete several Christmas gifts IN TIME for Christmas. *You see a cute pattern for socks and think that although you've never knit socks, you can just carry them along with you and knit randomly during the day, despite the aforementioned sweater and Christmas gifts. *You see cute children and decide it's really nothing to add another 2 knit gifts to the an already unreasonable projectload. (See above) *Your pile of yarn designated for projects is growing at a significantly faster pace than your list of Finished Objects. *You start many more projects than you finish. *You start many projects, and you haven't finished any in quite some time, because you're too busy starting more projects. At the time of this printing, although Jackie was given a copy of the AKA statement, she is still planning to knit the additional Christmas gifts. Her boyfriend Eric is working with the AKA to organize an intervention.

Jumping on the Bandwagon...

2004-12-02T13:43:00.000-05:00

Or, Third Time's a Charm. Following in the footsteps of Elisa and Wendy, here's the 100 things about me list. (Just think of it this way, at least you're getting them all done with in one day.) 1. I like lists. 2. I think it’s because I like to put things in order. 3. This list is in no particular order. 4. I wish I could put it in some order, but it would take too much time. 5. I’m a little neurotic. 6. That’s because I like to think about things. 7. A lot. 8. I’m a sucker for Caramelos. 9. Really. Being given a Caramelo will make me amenable to many things. 10. I’m easy to please. 11. Lindt Chocolate with Hazelnuts also has this effect on me. 12. I’m a Gemini. 13. This supposedly means I have two personalities. 14. Sometimes I think it’s true. 15. One side of me is ultra-responsible. 16. The other side of me is wild and impulsive. 17. They work well in balance. 18. I am an accountant/financial analyst. 19. I secretly wish I could dye my hair hot pink, like Lola in Run Lola Run. 20. I don’t do it for many reasons. 21. But I think I’ll always want to. 22. I graduated college in 3 years. 23. Some people think it’s because I’m smart. 24. But really I was stupid. 25. I did it for a boy. 26. It was really stupid. 27. I was supposed to go to Law School. 28. I withdrew. 29. I think it was one of the smartest things I ever did. 30. Aside from leaving the stupid boy. 31. That was the smartest thing I ever did. 32. I love living in Boston. 33. I hate living in Boston. 34. Can you blame me? 35. I have 3 brothers and no sisters. 36. I was a tomboy. 37. I didn’t learn how to be girly until my mid-twenties. 38. I am in my mid-twenties. 39. Writing that just made me feel a little older. 40. Even though I know 25 isn’t old. 41. I want to have a houseful of children. 42. I am petrified I won’t be able to have children. 43. I have no grounds for this fear. 44. But I can’t prove it true right now, so we just don’t know, do we? 45. I have an amazing family. 46. I love and respect my parents more than any other people on earth. 47. My brothers run a very close second. 48. They would feel the same way. 49. My parents are pretty freakin amazing. 50. I love and respect Eric in a completely different way. 51. Someday I want to write a book. 52. I can’t decide if it will be fiction or non-fiction. 53. I am better at writing non-fiction. 54. But I have a story I want to tell. 55. A very general story as of right now. 56. I’ve read every book Madeleine L’engle has ever written. 57. Many of them more than once. 58. I used to read a lot more. 59. Now I knit a lot. 60. Knitting is more social. 61. I like that. 62. I miss being a voracious reader. 63. Wendy says I’ll get good enough to do both. 64. I’m still working on it. 65. I broke my shoulder skiing when I was 22. 66. It was the first day I owned my own skis. 67. Figures, doesn’t it? 68. I don’t ski as much anymore. 69. I’m afraid to go really fast down the mountain. 70. I used to smoke cigarettes. 71. I really enjoyed smoking. 72. I still get jealous when I see other people smoking and having fun. 73. But the thought of having a cigarette is icky. 74. I’m happy that I’ve gotten to that point. 75. It took a long time. 76. I used to think I was inherently a bad cook. 77. I am turning into a good cook. 78. I’m really proud of that. 79. Same goes for baking. 80. This is tough, because I don’t like having snacky things in the house. 81. Because I will snack if there are snacks to eat. 82. My solution is to have a houseful of children to bake for. 83. That way, each one will get a little bit, and then it will be gone. 84. Good plan, huh? 85. Sometimes I think I’m more clever than I really am. 86. I’m okay with the world I create for myself. 87. I love seeing the end of the sunset when the sky is dark but there are pink and purple clouds on the horizon. 88. Sunsets like that can make even my neighborhood look picturesque. 89. My neighborhood is a little sketchy after dark. 90. But I can afford the rent. 91. And that way I can save for a down payment. 92. In most other places in the country, this wouldn’t be so difficult. 93. Refer back to #33. 94. I firmly believe it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you handle it. 95. I respect people who live by that. 96. I wish everyone lived by that. 97. My favorite thing about Southie is that many of my friends live there. 98. My favorite thing about Boston is its distinct neighborhoods. 99. I love to rock out in the car to whatever music is on. 100. And I especially love to dance to the music in my head. For those interested, the Inaugeral Southie SNB was last night, and it went really well. I met Aimee and Kama, and we fearless three knit for a couple of hours and got to know each other. They were really nice, and I look forward to keeping it going. It was Really Really nice to be able to walk down the street (literally less than a block from my apartment) to go to a SNB, and lucky for me, they both live around the corner too, so it seems we picked the perfect locale. Hopefully if we can keep it going, we can start to lure other Southie knitters out of the woodwork too. There have to be more of us. It just seems like this neighborhood is ripe for something like this. Okay, maybe ripe is a little strong. But, it has a coffee shop, right? That's gotta be good for something...

Little Angel

2004-11-30T15:10:00.000-05:00

My eldest brother came to visit over Thanksgiving. I should probably give you all a little background before I start rambling about my big brother. We don't get to see him very often, as he lives down in the rural Mid-Atlantic, has two small children, works 3 jobs, and overall has enough on his hands without adding travel on top of it. My parents do a great job of visiting him, especially now with the baby (7 months old) and all, but I rarely, if ever, get to accompany them on these trips. In fact, I see him so rarely that I often find that he's 'slipped' my mind. He's just not on my radar. I understand that this is a terrible thing. He's my brother, and I love him. It's just easy to get used to someone not being around. Especially when I see the rest of my immediate family all of the time, and talk to them on a daily basis. So, you can imagine how nice it was to be able to spend 4 whole days with him, his family, along with my parents and my other brothers. We played every board game and card game imaginable, we taught his 5 year old son all sorts of things, there was wrestling and laughing and lots of fart jokes. Good times. As we played Risk on Friday night, you should have seen the sh*t-eating grin on my father's face, because, to put it in his words, it is very rare that he gets all 4 of his children around the same table anymore. It's true. And as nice as it was to see him, what is the most amazing to me is that my big brother created the most beautiful and amazing baby girl ever. I would show you pictures to prove this, but I gave up the batteries in my camera early in the weekend to put in some game for the boys. So, no digital photos. :( And I was too busy clamoring to hold her, play with her and feed her to bother taking pictures even if my camera did work. She is gorgeous, she is happy, she is extraordinarily attentive, and holy God she did not fuss once the entire weekend. Not only did this add fuel to my ever louder biological clock (I know I've got plenty of time, but you tell that to my body every time it spots a baby somewhere) but it is setting me up for a very cruel fate. Because there is simply no way in hell that I will be blessed with so good of a child. My children are bound to be devil-spawn who scream, hate strangers, projectile vomit, scratch pictures into the furniture with nails, cover the rug in chocolate syrup, and are sure to cause general bedlam and upset. How do I know this? Because my parents cursed me for doing all these things to them. And yet, even the hair-raising prospects I face don't stop me from going google eyed over every little one I come across. I guess I'm just screwed. And so now I've got two more knitting gifts on my list for Christmas because those kids are just so cute I can't even help it. Ack! On the homefront, I took a hot shower last night, and it was GLORIOUS! I am now clean and unafraid to stand too close to coworkers. I was very disappointed about missing knitting with the ladies, but I'm glad to hear that they had a lovely time. One last order of business, my brother Thomas is dropping by the city to pass off my set of house keys he filched on Sunday. We made a deal - he'd drive into the city and drop off my keys and a few other things of mine, as long as we could grab lunch too. Seeing that as far as I'm concerned, Tommy walks on water (quite possibly the most good-natured and fun kid EVER), I think it's a win-win for me.

M.I.A.

2004-11-29T16:42:00.000-05:00

It's been a week since my last post. In the rush of early dismissal for the Thanksgiving holiday, I bolted out of here without taking the time to write the Thanksgiving post I had brewing in my head for the whole previous week. Probably, you should all be Thankful that you didn't get sucked into reading my ramblings about all the things I am Thankful for. I'm sure you can guess all the normal things, right? Family, friends, love, health, yarn, etc. But what I didn't realize is how thankful I am for Modern Plumbing. That's right. Not until I came home and found I had no hot water. I am Very Very Thankful that I usually don't have to heat up water on the stove in my tea kettle to bathe. Cause that's just not fun. I guess I should've taken the time to reflect on that before the cruel Winter Gods snatched it away from me. Take nothing for granted. Check. Normal posts resume tomorrow, hopefully the hot water situation will be resolved tonight. Girls, I will be thinking of you as you eat Elisa's homemade potato leek soup and get to spend time chatting over your knitting. I hope you have a fabulous time. I really do. I will try to think happy grateful thoughts, and try to avoid cursing the Winter Gods of Very Cold Water. (Please, please, please let it be fixed tonight!!!!!)

It's like Crack, but Better

2004-11-22T15:15:00.000-05:00

Under normal circumstances, it would be reasonable to assume that I would be referring to yarn/knitting. But not today. That’s because today we are purchasing the 1st season of the OC on DVD. I would not normally do something like this. Really. I’ve never initiated the purchase of a DVD, I don’t really watch TV (the OC and Red Sox aside), and I may even have been quoted as saying, just a mere week ago “what kind of loser would need a DVD of old TV episodes to watch over and over…” The answer is: Me. I’m that kind of loser. It all happened because yesterday we watched a borrowed copy of the 1st DVD with 4 episodes on it. That’s 4 - straight - hours of the OC. (Mind you, I didn’t start watching it until halfway through the season, so they were ‘new’ episodes, to me. Like that makes it better.) Any sane person would stop there, and say, phew, I’ve had enough teenage, fake, soap opera drama for one day. (Hey, most of us said that same sort of thing upon graduating from high school – who needs it now??) But no, it’s like crack I tell you. 4 hours on the stuff just made me crave it more. So we went on a trek all over town, even to Dorchester, by foot(!) to try to find a copy, any copy of the 1st season DVDs to rent or buy. We weren’t picky. There wasn’t a copy to be found. Evidentially, I’m not the only junkie out there. And so, lucky me, Eric’s going to pick it up during lunch today. Seeing that I watched the OC for 4 hours yesterday, and then spent a good hour or two in pursuit of watching more of the OC, I didn’t have any time to start working with this: This is the gorgeous Rowan Kidsilk I purchased during the Knitter’s Day Out on Saturday. First off, I had so much fun meeting Elisa, Wendy and Keiko. What was really interesting to me is that I’ve spent the past month or so getting to know Wendy and Elisa through their blogs and their comments and emails, and still I was amazed at how fun and interesting and super cool they are. And really, I had high expectations from the beginning (I mean, have you seen their blogs? Yeah, you’d have high expectations too :) but it was very literally like going from the 2nd dimension to the 3rd dimension, and as cool as blogs are, nothing compares to living color. Meeting Keiko was like icing on the cake, because we had only heard of her through Elisa’s blog, and she was awesome too. I’m looking forward to doing it again ladies! Super big thanks to Elisa and Wendy, who both shuttled me around from T stations to Bus stations!!! Thanks to Elisa, I was able to make it down to Milton, and thanks to Wendy, I made it to Real Thanksgiving on time. Did I mention that they were super cool? So, by the way, how gorgeous is that yarn?!? We stumbled upon it at the Snow Goose, and the nice lady working there pointed out a scarf that showed the two knitted together, and really, how can you resist? (Elisa has a picture up at her site of the 4 of us fondling the kidsilk blend scarf – the nice store lady made us pretend like we weren’t posing for a picture, but it was very fun and silly trying to continue to fondle the scarf as if we didn’t know she was sitting there trying to take a picture. It was pretty funny. Wendy’s pictures are slightly less embarrassing, and you can view them using the above link.) So anyway, we’ve already established that I have no willpower when it comes to beautiful yarn, and out came the wallet. I’ve just spent all weekend petting it. Not only that, but I made everyone at Real Thanksgiving pet it too. Even they had to concede it was gorgeous, and I could see the first little gleam in the eyes of the girls, revealing the first thoughts of, wait, if I knit, I could have yarn like this too? Really?? I mean, wouldn’t you want to knit if you saw and touched this yarn? Of course you would. So, you see, they were like putty in my hands by the end of the night when I pulled out the yarn kits. I was really happy to see the girls seemed genuinely excited at receiving their own little yarn kit. Not only that, but I had the support of my compatriot Angela, who bravely whipped out her yarn before dinner, and started knitting in the midst of conversations. I was supremely impressed. And so, I pulled out MFS, and we had a little knit-a-long while we waited for the turkey. So, good times all around, and a short week to boot. What more could a girl ask for? (Aside from the OC DVD...)

Real Thanksgiving

2004-11-19T16:06:00.000-05:00

It’s Friday!!! WhooHoo! If I could do the Friday dance in my cube, I would, but I’m a little afraid my boss would start to question my sanity. (If he doesn’t already). Anyway. Good things here at the Project. First off: Status on MFS Check this out:
Yes, it looks like the ribbing for MFS. If I could take a decent picture, you would be able to see that yes, it is ribbing, and no, there is no way it would work for MFS. That’s because, being destined to learn everything the Hard Way*, I knitted the ribbing using the same sized needles as I was planning on using for the body. If you have ever looked at any sweater pattern, you would know that you just don’t do that. Me, in my infinite wisdom and experience, thought that was because the patterns wanted you to have a bunchy ribbing that poofed out into the sweater body, and I didn’t want that. What I’ve learned (and could’ve learned MUCH faster if I had knitted a ribbing swatch) is that knitting ribbing with the same sized needle gives you a thick rib, with a significantly thinner St st fabric. I’m not really that upset about it, but I’m not going to be able to get much done on it until tomorrow morning, when I will be meeting Wendy, of The Bookish Girl fame, and Elisa, who claims she is Tongue-Tied, but her lovely blog proves otherwise… Somehow I thought it would be way more sketchy to be meeting people from the Internet. But really, it seems like a perfectly normal thing. Note that I still haven’t told my mother about this. I am very excited about it, but I’m not sure she would quite understand it in the same context. (I’m sure that’s what young girls say too when they go to meet the old greaseball who’s been sending her fake pictures of himself and lying about what he does for a living. I’m just going to ignore what those “other” internet people might be like.) There’s going to be some show and tell, and some brunching (yay food!) and some shopping and knitting (yay yarn!), and good times all around. I’m just giddy like a schoolgirl. Okay, so maybe I’m a tad disappointed that I have to rip out the ribbing and start over, because I was hoping to have more to show tomorrow upon arrival. However, it’s just not possible, because tonight we prepare for Real Thanksgiving. We’ve even enlisted the help of my friend Kim (more just for the fun of it, really, the preparations will be kind of easy). I feel I should stop and explain here, because when I first heard about Real Thanksgiving, I was confused. To me, there was only one Thanksgiving, and it involved various representatives of my large extended family eating lots of food and drinking lots of wine at my parents house. I love this Thanksgiving. I didn’t think there needed to be any other Thanksgiving. And then I started dating Eric. Eric’s friends have Real Thanksgiving** every year the weekend before everyone goes home for regular Thanksgiving. It’s where all of their friends get together, make wonderful Thanksgiving food, and make Thanksgiving not just a family holiday. At first, I was a little taken aback, because I thought the name cast regular old Thanksgiving in a not-so-good light (you know, as in Fake Thanksgiving), but it’s not true, they’re just being funny in their funny Ferrigno-like way. It’s cool. So tonight we make mashed squash and apple crisp, and eat some pizza, drink some beers and Kim is coming over too (yay!) There may even be more Southie crew goodness if we’re lucky. But there will be no knitting. And bonus for me, I just found out that I don’t have to work on Sunday (score!) Which, among other things, leaves me some quality time with MFS. And of course, on any given day being relieved of the duty to come in over the weekend would definitely the highlight of the workday, right? Not so at this publishing house. I was just given my own copy of a certain big yellow cookbook of gourmet recipes, with, get this, my name engraved on the cover. How cool is that???? *There has been some concern expressed by those in the comments that it may have been, um, well, excessive, to write my own pattern. I am ignoring these comments. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I mean, why wouldn’t you want your own sweater pattern? Really?? Math IS fun, I swear. ** So, if you’re wondering, my plan is still in place to try to convert Eric’s friends’ girlfriends/ fiancees to yarn junkies. I bought 5 sets of needles today, and in the midst of cooking tonight, I am going to enlist Kim to help me assemble knitting kits for Saturday afternoon. Thus, my plan is twofold: I will casually unleash the kits among the unsuspecting and slightly woozy girls after Real Thanksgiving dinner. I am banking on the fact that their enthusiasm may be bolstered by the alcohol. Additionally, by recruiting Kim to help with the assembly, I am hoping she may become intrigued herself, and that will begin my corruption of the Southie crew. (Kim comes from my side of the friends groups, and therefore she will not be at Real Thanksgiving.) My chances at success are slim, but if I can get one of them to succumb, I figure it’s only a matter of time before it spreads…

Dropping Like Flies

2004-11-18T16:05:00.000-05:00

Today has been a good day. First off, it's Thursday, and we're one short day away from the weekend. I've spent the day coordinating fun plans for the weekend, which there will be more details about tomorrow. I completed the MFS pattern, which I'm really excited and proud about seeing that I've never knit a sweater before, and I had to do some interesting logistical math to figure out how armholes and sleeves would work, without ever having done them before. Let's hope I did all the adding right, or I might end up with two armholes coming out closer to the waist than the shoulders.... more on that in a bit. Anyway, today I also got a phone call out of the blue from one of my old high school friends, who I only talk to once in a blue moon. It was so good to hear from him, and he had fabulous news that he recently got engaged. What I'd like to point out here is that evidentially, once you hit the magic mid-twenties, marriage becomes an epidemic. I've seen this happen to other groups of friends who were older than me, but I am still surprised at how sudden and pervasive it all is. This was the 6th engagement among my group of friends in the past 3 months. And there's a 7th who has the ring, but hasn't popped the question yet (all bets are on Thanksgiving weekend). We're averaging 1 engagement every 2 weeks. I would call that officially a "high rate of occurance." Poor Eric, every time this happens, he gets the "Hey, what are you waiting for?" question, and now they're tacking on: "We're making you look bad, buddy." Yes, we know. Anyway. Next year is chalking up to be the Big Wedding Year, and I'm really looking forward to it, because they will be a blast. Maybe I'll have to knit a pretty lace thing to wear as a wrap with my dresses. Hmmmm...... As an aside, does anyone know where the phrase "Dropping Like Flies" comes from? Thanks to our weekends in NH, and a little diddy by Phish, it all came together for me watching the cluster flies swirl around the ceiling, buzz around the windows, and drop dead to the sill in multitudes. No matter how many die, they just keep coming. And there's nothing you can do but swat them. (So true!) It was such a 'duh' moment for me when I realized that phrase actually had a literal meaning. This is not the first time it took me a long time to realize something very obvious. Okay, so onto the MFS pattern: I'm really really really excited about this. Not because the sweater is going to be anything snazzy, because it's not. It's a plain, fitted, stockinette stitch sweater, with 1 inch K1, P1 ribbed cuffs, and 3/4 length sleeves. I'm going to do a button detail up at one of the shoulder seams, but it's not something I could really write into the pattern because I'm going to play around with what will work best when I get there in the knitting. And, I might try to lightly felt it to soften the St st look. But the really cool thing about it is that if I got it all right, then I will have a standard sweater pattern that fits me perfectly, and that I can use as a basis for all other sweaters I might want to make for myself. How cool is that?? I actually typed the whole thing out in Excel and Word too. Excel so that if I try to scale it, I can plug formulas in to change the numbers (that's not functional yet, it's just an idea for now), and in Word for easy reading. I couldn't trust that I would remember what the scribbles meant after I worked out the different pieces. So, I'm going to cast on tonight, and see how it goes. Wish me luck!! -jkc

Math is Fun

2004-11-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

Gotta keep this short - I'm busy at work (!?) and even better yet, I'm totally engrossed and obsessed with my new project. Let me introduce you to My First Sweater (MFS): That's 15 balls of Peruvian Highland Wool, that I gleefully picked up from the Post Office yesterday morning before work (and then carried on the bus to work, and lugged home from work. The Post Office closes before I get home. All future deliveries are going to be made to my work address.) And this is where the obsession comes in: Somehow the whole pattern thing just doesn't really call to me. Maybe it's because I've only made scarves, mittens and hats so far (and therefore after looking at a few patterns you can get the general theory behind how they work). I cook the same way - I figure out what I want to make, look up a couple of general variations of the recipe on Epicurious, and wing it from there (doesn't always work out so good, but at least I'm learning how to cook rather than how to follow a recipe, you know?) And, as I was trying to figure out how to customize the basic sweater generated by: The Sweater Wheel (and other tools on that site) I remembered reading a review of SNB Nation, and how it's all about how to alter patterns. So of course, I ran to Windsor Button immediatly upon release from mon monde de Excel d'enfer*, bought the book, devoured the whole thing like it was a Lindt Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts bar (it stood no chance), and now I'm a liberated woman. I started measuring the dimensions of my favorite tops, I started experimenting with cuffs and tapered waists, and it's fantastically exciting. I find myself daydreaming during Budget meetings about how I could create a set in ribbing with decorative buttons, and debating raglan versus set-in sleeves. Maybe some decorative stiching around select cuff areas? We're having company for dinner tonight, and so if I'm lucky I'll be able to get a good swatch finished so I can start in on the precise math. I've also been recruited to work on Sunday, so there goes my big chunk of time to get started. Wait. I don't want to think about it. I have to go (work) now, so until tomorrow. *my world of Excel hell

Recovery

2004-11-15T14:51:00.000-05:00

You know, I spent all weekend with great ideas on what to post, and different ways to approach framing the stories of this weekend, but when it comes down to it, I'm just really tired. I could try to write a post would reflect the enthusiasm and energy of this past weekend, but it wouldn't ring true, because really, I have not yet recovered from expending all that enthusiasm and energy. I'm exhausted. (Okay, maybe it wasn't that I expended too much enthusiasm and energy. Maybe it was because I drank all the beer in Boston on Saturday. Along with various shots and a Scorpion Bowl. Whoever thought that Scorpion Bowls and Chinese food would be a good idea after 12 hours of drinking and dancing, well, they were only half right.) I have several good things to report though: 1) We won! It was a close call, but because the 16 members of Team Ferrig are bigger booze-bags than the 19 members of Team No, I got this fabulous T-shirt: 2) I finished the MDU scarf! I even finished it in time to wear on Saturday. Please note that it's a little shorter (but long enough for normal length) than I would have liked, but that's due to my own poor allotment of knitting time on Friday night. Mainly, I thought that I wouldn't wear the scarf on Saturday, and therefore attempted to knit a pair of mittens by 10am Saturday morning. Somehow I thought that if I cast on at 8pm on Friday night, this would be possible. I am obviously an idiot. Here is a picture of the scarf in action, that's me posing with John (the organizer of the pubcrawl) John's taking the picture too, which explains the funny angle: A picture of the scarf on my couch: And a picture of the scarf in (blurry) detail: 3) I came out of the closet! Evidentially, drinking all the beer in Boston made me confess, to everyone, that I knit, and that I am obsessed with yarn and all knit things. I thought it was interesting in the same way other (drunk) girls think it is interesting to talk about their ex-boyfriends all night long. Yes, I have been that other (drunk) girl too. 4) I (kind of) came out of the closet(?) Drinking all the beer in Boston, plus shots and a Scorpion Bowl, gave me (a little) courage to admit to (a few) people that I blog. 5) I am a knitting missionary! If I remember correctly (and this is a BIG if) the girls of Ferrigno who will also be at Real Thanksgiving this Saturday were intrigued enough by the beauty of the MDU scarf and Eric's scarf set, and possibly the creative potentials therein, that they asked me to bring knitting stuff to show (seduce) them the basics of knitting (to become yarn floozies). I am thrilled at the possibility of teaching (corrupting) the other girls, so that we can all sit together and knit while our boyfriends are doing boy things together. It will be fantastic. Then again, they may have just been willing to say anything to get me to shut up. I'm not sure. 6) My camera works! I figured out that I was right, the problem was that the camera is just a spoiled, temperamental piece of gadgetry, and as soon as I threatened to use Eric's camera in her stead (his camera was on the counter, eagerly waiting to take pictures) when we gave my camera one last try. I think the fear of replacement prompted her to get her act together. That or the new batteries I gave her. And because it's LONG overdue, I'm going to put in an unnecessary shot of Eric's now finished hat (unfinished in the picture.) I also learned a few things: 1) I am not 21 anymore. Even a greasy breakfast, a day of doing nothing, and 12+ hours of sleep can't change that. 2) Knitting <> Shopping. If I need mittens for the next day because it's cold and snowy, I can't knit them with 4 hours knitting time notice. If I need mittens quickly, I should buy a cheap pair at Marshalls. 3) Dancing for 4 hours in sturdy snow boots is not a good idea. Even if you can't feel the damage until the next day. 4) Futon mattresses are evil. If you don't believe me, try carrying one up and down a basement staircase built in the 1840s. 5) Chris Farley skits still make me belly laugh. Sober. And, that's about it. It's weekends like this that make me remember why I had so much fun going out all the time a few years ago, and why I don't go out all the time anymore. Weird, huh?

Here's to You, Lou

2004-11-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

I have a big weekend in front of me, and (unfortunately) it's not yarn related. This weekend is Lou Ferrigno's birthday. Who is Lou Ferrigno, you ask? Lou Ferrigno is the actor who played the Incredible Hulk. Now, you ask yourself, why in the world do we care that it's Lou Ferrigno's birthday? This is a Good Question. To most people, it means nothing, but to my (slightly twisted and way geeky) friends, it marks the: 4th Annual Lou Ferrigno's 49th Birthday Pub Crawl. AKA: F-52. This is a big deal. (For us.) Eric's BC friends fly in from Ohio, NY and Cali to attend. Planning meetings begin in June, each year, after the ringleader sits for the CFA exam. A Ferrigno Pub Crawl video is shot each year, to commemorate the proceedings (and to help jog memories the next day, usually to our chagrin). This year, the crawl is in the form of The Great Ferrigno Race, where we're divvied up into two teams, and race through the first 6 bars, getting the clue to the next bar only after each team member has finished their brew. You can imagine the chaos and shenanigans ensuing already. What does this mean for my knitting? It means that only if I'm really really lucky can I hope to finish my MDU scarf this weekend, because my knitting time is limited to tonight and Sunday night, as the delegates from Ohio will be staying at our place. Not to mention the cleaning, grocery shopping, overall set up (lugging the futon upstairs to the living room) the drinking, the recovery and the tour of Boston we'll be giving Sunday to our friend's boyfriend who has never visited the city. And let me tell you, I need to finish the MDU scarf, and quick. It's getting cold, and oh yeah, by the way, IT'S SNOWING RIGHT NOW. And really, I just need a good hour or two and the scarf is ready for action. Camera Update: I hope to have pictures again starting next week. After remembering that Eric has a digital camera too (which he never uses due to his love of non-digital photography) we realized that it's in a box somewhere, so my ability to post pictures is now at the mercy of Eric's willingness to dig around in the basement. Which may or may not happen this weekend. Hope everyone has a happy, yarn-filled weekend! Jackie

Common Ground

2004-11-11T13:03:00.000-05:00

Armistice Day November 11 is the anniversary of the Armistice which was signed in the Forest of Compiegne by the Allies and the Germans in 1918, ending World War I, after four years of conflict. Hi everyone. I have a number of thoughts in response to all the people who took the time to comment yesterday: 1) Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to read what I had to say, and for leaving such thoughtful comments. It takes time and energy to think and be involved, and usually it's easier to avoid engagement, and everyone left meaniningful comments. I really appreciated hearing from you all. 2) It's a big muck of Grey out there. It seems to me that a lot of the division is being caused by people thinking that "Conservative"** means one thing and "Liberal" means another, and there's a whole hell of a lot of generalizations happening (I'm guilty of this too). I know that not all people who voted for Kerry are anti-religion, and yes, I understand that pro-choice doesn't necessarily mean pro-abortion, and I even know that many "Liberals" put a lot of thought into their ideology, but many don't either. Neither do some "Conservatives". It's impossible to fit a person into a category. We're human. That's just how it is. We do out best to vote for the man or the party that most closely represents the direction we think the country should go in, and then 4 years later we do it again. And in between, we get to live our beliefs, and learn from our mistakes, and prepare to give it another go. 3) I tend to get a little tongue-in-cheek at times. I really didn't mean that "Liberals" should be Beware when reading my post. I should have put a little " ;) " next to the title, because that would most closely represent the little bit o' mischief and grin I was feeling when I titled the post. I didn't really mean that all "Liberals" like fuzzy, nice answers to things (and yes, I'm a little fuzzy myself right now B.G., it's cold outside!). It seems that way sometimes, in the same way it must seem to other people that all "Conservatives" are Anti-Gay, Jesus-freaks. 4) I think we're all a little defensive right now. Both "Liberals" and "Conservatives" have spoken of hate-filled attacks from the other side. We don't want to be labeled. We're all a little confused. But really, we're a group of people sharing the same nation, and each of us agree on some things, maybe other things, disagree on some points, and maybe others, and hey, we got along really well before the election, we're going to have to figure out how to get over the hurdle and continue on. I was hurt when I found out what some knit bloggers really thought about people who voted for Bush, and these were people who I had enjoyed reading before the election, who I thought were really neat people. As it is, they still are the same neat people they were before, but I have to get over their (inadvertantly) hurtful and sometimes brash statements and generalizations, and they're going to have to get over that they don't agree with or understand why people voted for Bush. And Vice Versa. We all still like wool. I want to be known for my Yarn Adventures and Rakish Wit (ha ha), not as the Bush Supporter. 5) I'm not trying to push my views on anyone. My post was intended to answer a specific question posed by many people, particularly, Why Would Someone Vote for Bush? I tried to answer as honestly and completely as a blog forum would allow. **These terms being used in their most broadest sense. It seems we all have widely different views on what they represent. That's okay. It's Armistice Day. It's time to lay down our differences, and realize that we're all neighbors and members of a community that need to live side by side. I want to meet new knit friends, and to continue to get to know the ones I have already met. I'm marking this as the end of serious political discussion at this Blog. Check out some of the posts pre-November 10th, and if you like what you read, please come back to visit. I only have a regular internet connection at work (not home), so I'm a little slow at checking everyone out , but I'm looking forward to stopping by all my commenters pages, and saying hello. I really wanted to write about the progress of the MDU scarf (almost there) and how happy I am that Eric is now wearing his scarf and hat set (finally wove in the ends), and especially about how I made my first bulk yarn purchase (get thee to Elann.com, and check out the Peruvian Collection Highland Wool) 15 balls of Ruby Red yarn, and so many projects to choose from. I think it will be my first sweater(!). But it seems to me that protracted yarn discussion doesn't mix well with the political stew above and below, and I may need a couple of hours before I can fully switch gears. Fresh start to come. Happy Armistice Day :) Jackie

Standing Up for What I Believe. Liberals Beware.

2004-11-10T14:24:00.000-05:00

I have been trying to keep my blog a nice, quiet, non-political corner of the knit blog world. Other brave men and women have been fighting the fight, and I salute them. Healthy public debate is important. The time has come though: I have heard my call to arms. The Bookish Girl has been "hard pressed to find measured opinions from those who voted for Bush". I see that my fellow conservatives need me, to clearly articulate our stance. Or at least my stance. Introduction Hi, my name is Jackie. I am 25 years old, I am college educated, I live in Boston. I have been unemployed (my former employer, Arther Andersen, was forced out of business, you may have heard), I now work for a publishing company. I am divorced. I am in love, and according to my Church, I am living in sin. I follow my own conscience. I was raised in a happy, loving, hard-working, traditional family. My parents put themselves through school, and I was at both of my parents college graduations. Their grandparents came over on the boat from Ireland, became policemen and maids, in order to provide this opportunity to my grandparents, parents, and my generation. I am a Conservative. Overall I am a conservative because I believe that Rights come with Responsibilities. I believe that the only way that a nation can be self-governing, is if its citizens practice self-governance. In my study of history and economics, I understand that the combination of small government and the free market system allows for opportunity and prosperity. I believe it is important for citizens to have a value system, regardless of the details, and I believe it is important for people to feel free to express those values, without judgment. I am strongly against discrimination, including the reverse-kind. I believe that the government has a duty to protect its citizens, and to stand true to its duties, regardless of 'popular' opinion. I abhor politics by polling, and I regret that politics has become a career rather than a civic duty. I view liberals as people who have nice, fuzzy answers to difficult, complex issues. I believe that the majority of popular media (TV and Newspapers) are outrageously biased and even negligently misleading towards the left because, due to the average American's 30-second attention span, these media outlets are designed to offer small 'bits' of information on difficult, complex issues. Media outlets need to be quick and they need ratings, which lend them naturally to a liberal viewpoint, answers and views that sound nice ("Why can't we all be friends?") and are quick and easy to understand. For this reason, in addition to the popular media outlets, I also read alternative news sources (The National Review and Townhall.com) and listen to talk radio, which provide conservative views to current issues, which often de-bunk and offer substantial rebuttals to general and unsubstantiated claims made by the liberal sections of the media. For example, an excerpt from an article by Mona Charen, a leading conservative author, who happens to by a woman (duh) and Jewish. Not exactly your stereotypical right-wing, white male Christian. Anyway, the excerpt (published on June 30, 2004, and archived on Townhall.com): "Many on the left seem incapable of carrying on a political discussion without descending into character assassination. One of their roadside bombs hit close to home this week. From his perch on the New York Times editorial page, Paul Krugman spins a bit of a conspiracy tale of his own. In a column titled "Who Lost Iraq?" Krugman attributes the "failure" of Iraq's reconstruction to "ideological obsession and cronyism." Now, let's see, we know that Saddam modeled Iraq on Stalin's Soviet Union, so what ideological obsession is Krugman referring to? It turns out that Krugman objects to capitalism. Yes, Krugman is appalled to learn that Paul Bremer was intent upon "privatizing government-run factories." Good heavens, these Bush administration people really are zealots! Later, Krugman calls them "right-wing economic theorists." Hello? Was Krugman asleep when we won the Cold War? Note: Free markets work; state-run economies flounder. But this news may not yet have filtered down to the New York Times. As for cronyism, Krugman smirks, "If the occupiers often seemed oblivious to reality, one reason was that many jobs at the C.P.A. went to people whose qualifications seemed to lie mainly in their personal and political connections -- people like Simone Ledeen, whose father, Michael Ledeen, is a prominent neoconservative ..." This is rich. I happen to know Simone Ledeen. She is an MBA who speaks three languages. Iraq was not her first idealistic mission. She had earlier lived and worked in Poland following the liberation from communism. She helped to transform what had been an underground Solidarity book publishing enterprise into a thriving, free market enterprise. In Iraq she signed on with the Finance Ministry to help pay Iraqi workers who were quite desperate and might turn to violence if not paid. Everything was in confusion. They had to start from scratch and create a new currency. Each day (accompanied by the prayers of her worried mother), she donned a flak jacket and a helmet to make the trip across Baghdad. On some occasions she ventured into remote areas to ensure that Iraqi civil servants were paid. Together with other Americans willing to sacrifice for Iraq's future, she slept on a cot in a corridor of one of Saddam's palaces. Later she was moved to a luxurious ... trailer. For seven months, Simone worked constantly and slept little. She did these things for her country and for the cause of freedom. It runs in the family. Her brother is a Marine. Simone is home now. Krugman might want to investigate her replacement, whose motivations were quite similar to hers. He's an analyst from Kidder-Peabody who was in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. " Additionally, I find that the left-wing media tends to blatantly ignore facts that work against its own view-points, such as the fact that Kofi Annan's son has made millions off the Food-for-Oil program in Iraq, and that the French government and French firms had over $5 Billion of contracts and interests with Saddam Hussein's regime. A conflict of interest I suppose when objectively assessing whether inspections were working or whether the regime was keeping faith with the U.N. We will discuss Saddam Hussein's regime and France/UN later. This election I support George W. Bush because I believe in his sincerity in his convictions. He is up-front about what he believes, the direction he is taking the nation, and he will keep faith with the commitments he has made. I may not agree with all of his stances, but that, my friends, is why we have state and local governments. For national policy, I believe that lowering taxes stimulates the economy. I believe that a government-run healthcare system would be a disaster. I believe that any large institution publicly run would become a disaster. When you take away the free-market factors, people lose the incentive to be efficient and to price shop (and to compete to provide the best service) and we turn into the model that Eastern Europe already proved to be a failure. As far as Gay Marriage goes, I don't believe that the government has any right to hand out "Marriages" to anyone. Marriage is inherently a religious status, let the religious institutions deal with that privately as they will. The government should only be able to issue "Civil Unions" to any two people who seek them. The Civil Union should define under the law what rights and obligations the two parties have to one another in order to retain that status. The sanctity of marriage is ultimately a private belief, the government shouldn't be in the business of drawing those lines. Abortion. I am pro-life. I believe in the sanctity of life, and I believe that abortion is murder. However, I understand that there are mitigating circumstances (as with murder of a child or an adult) and I believe that the responsibility for abortion in the first or maybe even second trimester should reside with the conscience of the baby's parents, and with the parents' parents, if the party in question is underage. However, I believe that partial-birth abortion, or any abortion in the third trimester is beyond reprehensible, as the baby is now capable of sustaining itself (with a little help) without its mother. Taking God out of the abortion question: Philosophically, why do we as humans find murder to be such a reprehensible act? It is because of the stealing of the person's future potential. Once that baby has a potential beyond its mother, it's murder. Too often abortion is used as birth control, too often abortion is sold to young pregnant women as the quick, easy and responsible(!) way out, when in fact, its effects can be devastating (emotionally and physically). And not often enough is adoption presented as a viable option for mothers incapable of raising an unwanted child. Stem Cell research: I understand that potentially there are wonderful medical discoveries that might come from this avenue of research. I caution against taking the moral implications of this research lightly. Where do you draw the line between growing and then killing humans for research? Right now Stem Cell research involves using to-be discarded embryos from fertility clinics. To this I say Where is the line drawn? It has recently come to light that only certain types of tissues can be generated from embryos because the embryo in its early stage of development is focused on generating select tissues. However, if a baby in a later stage (or even a child or adult) could be used to generate all tissues, should we use them as well? As it is now, many countries in Europe have made stem cell research illegal, in the US it is only denied federal funding. I believe that in the name of "progress" we tend to rush into scientific endeavors without the proper measuring of moral and ethical issues. Environment: I am not passionate nor informed on these matters. In fact, I am woefully ignorant. I love trees and fresh air (and wool!), I would like to see progress on alternative fuel sources, but am not foolish enough to think that this will happen overnight. Begin attacking me here. Iraq... The one you've all been waiting for. I believe that the US foreign policy should be to act in the national interest. Not the UN's interest, and not Europe's interest. I am proud of our country, and our people, who are hard working, and despite the range of the spectrum, are trying hard to continually make us a better country. After traveling cross country twice, I am amazed at the vast diversity and needs of my fellow countrymen, and further amazed that our democracy works as well as it does. I am ashamed when I hear my fellow countrymen bash our nation and its citizens for thinking differently than them, or for living such "bigoted" lifestyles as having a church-going, two-parent, hetero-sexual, nuclear family. As ashamed as I am when I hear someone use the "N" word, or degrade someone based on their gender, male or female. I am also ashamed when I hear my fellow countrymen bash our nation and its citizens for supporting our troops in a war against a brutal dictator who massacred his people, and who used chemical and biological warfare as a tool for genocide against minority populations within his own country, and against our troops in the Gulf War. This is a dictator which had a program in place to build larger, more destructive weapons to use in his own pursuit of power and wealth. The growing strength of Saddam Hussein and his increased resistance against the US and the UN resolutions pertaining to him consituted a direct threat to the US national security and required action. The only effective course of action in this case was use of force. Regimes such as the Baathist under Saddam do not respond or adhere to the civilized use of diplomacy. When they see an olive branch extended by a group of smiling nations saying 'why can't we all get along', they see weakness and look to exploit it. Other dictators and similar regimes around the world need to know that we will stand by our word, and will defend our interests (such as peace and free trade). The Kerry, and liberal, stance on this issue, which would be to attempt to garner international support and to withdraw from Iraq would both prove to be disastrous. France and Germany will never support use of force, if for no other reason except to act as counterweight to US interests (see my conflict of interest section above). History has proven that withdrawal from a previously committed plan, such as in Vietnam, would lead to bloodshed and chaos such as we haven't seen in a generation (since the killing fields in Cambodia.) That's what happens when you show ambivalence and hesitation. It shows that the international arena cannot trust our nation to keep to its word, its course, and that we are unreliable. The Iraqi people would be right to distrust us, as we withdrew in 1991 after the first Gulf War, leaving all the US supporters within Iraq to Saddam Hussein's mercies. We need to stay the course, and we need to be strong to do it. For a nation that likes to see instant results (the Marshall Plan took years) we need to understand that this will take an investment of time and resources. By the way, Saddam is a brutal monster. He butchered his own people. Hundreds of thousands of people mass-killed lined up and gunned-down. Torture of the worst kind. This was a man who, once he was instated to power, brought all of his own top supporters into a room for a meeting, and had them all shot as they sat at the table, in order to consolidate his power base. He is in the same league as Stalin, Hitler, Vlad the Impaler (read some history), insert horrific name here. For liberals espousing their own views of peace, love and understanding, removing this man from power was a good, humanitarian thing to do. Now we need to stay the course and allow the country to reconstruct itself. As for John Kerry, he pretty much stood opposite to all I believe in. Worse than having a firm stance on Iraq, pro or con, he was ambivalent and hesitant, which would have destroyed all of our progress to date. He is for publicly run health care, he is insincere in his convinctions (his quotes contradict in the worst and most direct way, I can provide numerous examples, and he tried to use his nominally Catholic status for political currency) he is for increased taxes, bigger government and he is politics by expedience at its worst. By the way, just to remind you, I live in Boston, practically lived down the street from John Kerry for the past two years (down on Charles Street), I am an educated, urban female, and yes, this is what I believe. Comments are welcome. Adventures on the beautiful yarn I purchased yesterday and how happy I am at finished Eric's scarf set will be posted tomorrow.

Good Times

2004-11-08T16:02:00.000-05:00

In the rhythms of life, I find that there are times of upheaval, building, enjoying, and then waiting. That's pretty much the Cycle for me. I tend to get abstract sometimes in my ramblings, but I promise, there will be knitting content somewhere in the post. Okay, where was I. Oh, yeah, the Cycle. Let me give you the quick and dirty scrubdown on each phase of the Cycle: Upheaval: Time of change, this can include moving, breakups, graduations, bad times (illness, death), good times, (weddings, births), what have you. But it's when things are changing, everything's up in the air, and you're just doing what you need to get through the upheaval and see where everything lands when it's done. To use moving as an example, this is when everything's in boxes, you're living out of a backpack on someone's couch, and you're hoping the close on the property is going to go as scheduled, cause you might just be really screwed otherwise. Building: The dust is beginning to settle, and you can begin to create order out of chaos, put down some roots, and develop a game plan. Or, the close happened, the house is yours, the boxes are in, but there's a hell of a lot of set up, cleaning and decorating to do. Enjoying: Daily routine settles in, things are fairly constant, and life is good. Ditto with the analogy. Waiting: Ahhh.... the enjoying period only lasts so long, and then the waiting starts. It's like sensing a storm coming, just on the edge of your senses, and just on the edge of the horizen. Say, maybe there's whispers of your husband might get transfered, and you might need to move, but it might be just talk, and then... it all tumbles into upheaval again and the next thing you know you're standing in a pile of dust, looking back at a whirlwind just trying to process all that's happened over the past couple of months. The Cycle can be applied in the small, medium, and broad scheme of life, but I'm using this as an attempt to illustrate this past weekend using a frame of reference. This past weekend marked the transition from Building to Enjoying for me. This is a huge thing. We spent all of August, September and a lot of October consumed in this move, from planning it, to doing it, to setting up house and getting into the daily routine of functional, happy household. There's been a lot of weekends that I've looked back thinking, oh, I'm so glad we got all that done, or what a nice weekend, it was so nice piddle around our new apartment, or explore the neighborhood, etc., but it's been months since I've said, oh my God I had Such a Fun Weekend.

I wasn't worried about having furniture delivered, we've got the grocery shopping and laundry down to a science. We were free to go out, do things, see people, and have fun. I saw old, close friends, I met fun new people. I went tailgaiting, I went out to eat, I went out on the town, I went from here to there having to change and primp in a public bathroom and I laughed the entire time. I cheered for college football and drank hot chocolate to keep warm. I wore red heels to a swank party and I danced in the middle of a kitchen to Louie Armstrong. And I walked home with the greatest guy in the world, and a big fat grin on my face. I got up early and tired and drank the best cup of coffee ever (with a chocolate croissant!). I went home home and played with my baby cousin, shopped with my Mom, talked shop with my Dad, knit and re-knit on the train. I knit for hours by candlelight (and a reading lamp) with wine and a Lord of the Rings DVD. And then I unraveled and knit some more. And I have half of a really cool scarf to show for it. Good times my friends, good times. And as a result, this is one pretty thankful and super happy knitter.

Quick n' Easy

2004-11-05T13:54:00.000-05:00

Sorry guys, I didn't put much thought into this one, just a quick note really, before I disappear for the weekend. Has anyone had the Harvest Pumpkin soup from Au Bon Pain? Get thee to a A.B.P. if you haven't, it's sumpin special. (Another day I'll write a post on my Soup Theory, but now isn't the time.) Go BC! Eric and I are going to the BC game tomorrow with a bunch of his BC friends. (I'm a Nittany Lion, and although I should bitterly dispise BC for the routings two years in a row, I don't. In fact, I'm a half-out-of-the-closet BC fan, something I justify by the fact I was shortly enrolled at BC Law. To those who say that doesn't really count because I never actually went there, I say, when did I ever let a little thing like that stop me?) Anyway, I harbored the vaguely unrealistic hope that I would have the MDU scarf finished for the game tomorrow. Does anyone else think things like this: If I buy wool on Wednesday, I can finish a scarf by Saturday morning - while factoring in things like I work full time and I like to get a good night's sleep? Am I the only one? Because it was obviously a dilusion. Even if I hadn't frogged the thing and started over, I'd only have about, oh, 12 - 16 inches done. As it is, I have about 4 inches complete (thanks to Amalie, the OC*, and our friend Mr. Frog). Granted, I have the apartment all to myself tonight, so maybe there's still hope... Two things that don't mix: Football Games and Cocktail Parties. That seems pretty obvious, don't you think? I'm a little apprehensive, because after being at the BC game all day, we're expected to show up to a fairly swank engagement party (for which I've been designing cd covers for the party gifts), to which we will be arriving late and rushed, and possibly tipsy-tired-hungover-dirty, or any combination thereof. Experience tells me the transition from rowdy, outdoors, beer drinking fun to quiet, refined and cocktail drinking fun will not be smooth. And it's for a girl I'm *fairly* close with, not close enough that she won't care if we show up in whatever state we're in, but close enough that there's no way I could not go (especially because of a football game). If I survive that potential mess, I believe I will be rewarded with ample knitting time on Sunday, as I'm planning on going home home (home home, that is, my parents' house), which involves a 1 1/2 hour train ride each way, and a lot of lounging on the couch watching football. Prime knitting time, all of it. And sleepy, nappy time. No better place to go to relax and recover than home home. That's it for now. I hope you all have a great weekends! Oh, and let me extend my jealously to The Tongue Tied Muse and The Bookish Girl, who are going to the Circles anniversary this weekend. Jealous, of course, because they're going to have a fun little rendevous at what I hear is a super cool knitting store, to which I've never been. (J.P. is the far neck of the woods from Southie.) Have fun ladies! * The O.C. premier was on last night, and it was awesome. I'm glad it's back!

Yukon, Ho!

2004-11-04T14:09:00.000-05:00

Upset about the election? Thinking about moving to Canada? Then you should definitely check out this post by Catawampus.

Breaking Out

2004-11-04T10:53:00.000-05:00

For those of you who may remember the coat dilemma, you should know that in light of the camera situation (it's broken), and the overall yarn situation (I'm an addict), that I indeed practiced some self-restraint and ended up purchasing the sensible and affordable Grey Coat. Not that I won't secretly be plotting to purchase the cute pink number at a later date, but it's getting cold, I needed a coat, and (although I often ignore this) my budget is in fact limited. Not that there's anything wrong with a grey coat. It's just that in this town there's a little phenomenon I like to call The Boston Uniform, or, What-People-Wear-in-one-of-the-Most-Conservative-Clothing-Cities-in-the-Nation. (Before I go any further, I'd just like to say that the following observations are based on my own personal experiences in and around Boston over the past 5 years. YMMV.) For girls, it involves black sweaters and grey pants in the winter, capri pants and cute little tanks with a matching cardigan in the summer. For guys, it involves blue or white shirts, with grey or black pants in the winter, blue shirts with khaki pants in the summer. Winter coats are mostly black or grey (a few girls have broken out and gone with color) with nice conservative scarves. Often in the Burberry plaid tradition. In a most general way, I've noticed that this phenomenon is more centered in the Downtown, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Brighton/Allston, Brookline and South Boston areas. Overall, it seems to have less of a grip on the Cambridge, Somerville, JP, and other areas. It has a stronger grip on the general business population, and less on the arts and non-profit sectors of the city. That being said, I find myself continually being guided by societal factors into conforming with The Boston Uniform, and it's like gravity - a universal force that you can't see, but it's always pushing down on you. And so it goes, I really wanted a cute, colorful coat (pink, blue, red, it doesn't matter!), but as it turns out, my only real choice was the practical grey one. To replace the black wool one that I lost last year (a casualty of Boston bars in the winter). So to hell with the nice conservative scarf, I'm going handspun, hand-dyed, a riot of colors sort of scarf. This is where the Manos de Uraguay yarn I purchased yesterday during my little coupure de prison comes in. Maybe it's because I'm new to this, maybe it's because I haven't had a chance to spin or dye my own wool, but I am just completely entranced by this yarn. I'm interweaving a blue/gold hank with a rose/moss green hank, and the variations of the colors leave me staring. I hope that it will work over the course of a larger piece (right now I only have a swatch sized bit done). Anyway, the bummer of the whole deal is that I think in my first go around I made the scarf too wide, and so comes the Big Evil Frog. Hopefully, I'll get a chance during lunch to unravel and start over. I'm lucky too, because last night we watched Amelie, which seriously put a cramp in my knitting progress, as it has sub-titles. So it's not like I'm ripping out 1/3 of the scarf. As for Amelie, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It was up for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award a couple of years ago, and it's extremely well shot, and is nice AND interesting, two things that don't always go hand in hand. And before you get the wrong idea, I am definitely not cool enough* to be perusing the old Academy Award Foreign Film nominations seeking uber-trendy flicks to watch. We just stumbled upon it on On Demand, remembered a friend mentioning it was good, and decided to give it a try. Lucky for us we did. Anyway, that's it for now. Hopefully I'll replace the camera soon so that I can show off some of these colors I'm drooling over. *In fact, I have to admit I love the O.C., which is about as opposite from quality film as you can get. For someone who never really watched TV, even back to high school, I don't know how this show reeled me in, but call me a sucker, I'm hooked. Eric and I actually planned our dinner around the season premier tonight. I know, I should be ashamed. But I'm not.

M.D.U., Where Have You Been All My Life?

2004-11-03T11:28:00.000-05:00

I know it's not popular in this neck of the woods to support George W. Bush. So before you all start preparing the stakes on which to burn me, or better yet, stop reading my blog, let me just say that I am not planning on ever turning this space into a serious forum on politics, or really, a serious forum on anything. This is supposed to be fun. That being said, today has been a great day so far. I went to bed very nervous about the election, and I woke up to find that (pretty much) George W. had won. This, in my mind, was excellent news. No, I don't sport devil-horns on the weekends for fun. I'm sorry the rest of you probably don't feel that way (about G.W., not the devil-horns, actually, maybe the devil-horns too), but it is what it is and let's move on. Then, as I was waiting for the bus to come, I scored a ride to work when some of my friends drove by on their way into Back Bay. The luxury of riding in a car doesn't come too often these days, so please excuse the irrational giddiness. And it sure beats standing sardine style on the bus. And just when I thought things couldn't get any better, we had a fire drill this morning at work. Usually these things are pains in the tush, but I saw opportunity in the chaos. Instead of milling around outside for a half an hour, I disappeared through the masses of people milling around like we were supposed to and dashed over to Windsor Button, where I purchased the most spectacularly dyed yarn (Manos de Uraguay) for a scarf and mitten set for myself. I'm getting a little bored with scarfs, hats and mittens, but the weather's getting cold, and I need a scarf, so I don't have much a choice. (I find it interesting that I no longer find buying a mass-produced scarf a choice.) But, this yarn is all sorts of blues with some gold streaked through it, and then one skein I purchased was all sorts of rose colors with moss green streaked though it, and I'm going to alternate between the two and see what happens. I love fun yarn experiments. Not to mention that I had to cut through the Common to get to Windsor Button, and so I caught what is probably the last of the beautiful sunshine and the golden leaves wind-dancing down to the grass. It was a fine walk. Yay!

No Pictures Today, or, Why My Camera is Stupid.

2004-11-02T16:41:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's election day. I know it's huge, and I feel very strongly about voting, and the candidates in this election. There's nothing I can say on this matter that hasn't been said by everyone else. I highly recommend this fantastic post by Catawampus on the subject, and if you need encouragement to vote, please visit The Bookish Girl and scroll down to the second post. That being said, I have a more pressing immediate concern than who is going to be the leader of the free world for the next 4 years. That is, my stupid digital camera is acting up again. Last night I went to take a picture of the almost finished hat so that I could prove to everyone that I actually do knit, and that this is, at heart, a knitting blog, and the thing wouldn't take a picture. Having run into this particular problem before, I thought, no problem, I'll just replace the battery. Bingo. It took the picture. For a person who owned a normal, nice camera, this would be the end of the matter. Not so for me and my devil-possessed, lazy-ass, near-sighted camera. I just went to load the picture of the nice, blue-striped hat I've been working on and what do you know? You guessed it - the camera won't turn on again. Just gave it new batteries. Last night. Did nothing with it until now. And yes, it has an automatic turn-off mechanism, so it shouldn't be a problem if I left it on. That's it for now. I'm going to stew in disgust for a little while, and then I'm off to the polls, to vote for the candidate who has the strongest stance on shoddy camera manufacturers. So there. (Here's where I look at the bright side: I hear they've made wonderful advances in digital camera technology, so I'm sure I'm going to have lots of fun researching which new one to buy... Shopping makes everything better.)

November Pep Talk

2004-11-01T15:45:00.000-05:00

After the craziness that was October, and a heavenly but much too short grace period to recover from said crazy October, I find that I'm actually glad that it's November. Never before in my life have I said that, but it's true. I swear. I know, I know. November is the beginning of the Dark Time. We turn the clocks back, and when I look out the window at 4:30, it's night outside. There's no more hoping for a glorious afternoon of golden foliage and sunshine just warm enough to help you forget what's in store for the next 6 months. It means I better get off my ass and buy a new coat, cause my jean jacket isn't going to cut it anymore. Worst of all, it means that baseball is over, and now when I show up at work, I am actually expected to work. And yet, despite all this, I'm happy it's November.* And it's not cause I'm smoking the crack. November means that I'm not flying by the seat of my pants all the time. For instance, it means that I need to have a menu planned for the week, and groceries purchased at the beginning of the week to correspond with pre-planned menu. In October, it was perfectly acceptable to plan random spots of eating around potential last minute plans. This doesn't fly with me once the post-season is over. I like coming home without the pressure of trying to scrounge up something-out-of-nothing to eat. And I hate eating crap-processed food on a regular basis.** Of course, November also means that I will have much more time to knit. Just last night I made more progress on Eric's hat (that matches the never-ending scarf) than I knit during all of October. Sad, but (pretty much) true. I now have a whole winter of quiet weeknight evenings ahead in which I only need to choose which project to work on, or which book to pick up. (Except on Thursdays. Thursdays are reserved for the O.C. We'll see if I can knit during the O.C. I'm going to guess negatory on that, but you never know, right?) And last, but definitely not least, it means I should regularly be getting a full night's sleep. It should be noted that it has only been in the past few months that I have been able to truly and absolutely crave and protect my sleep time. I can't exactly pinpoint when I turned into an old fart, but I'm thinking it was somewhere around mid-August. Up until that point, I had never in my life had the luxury to go to bed early, wake up at a reasonable hour*** and still make it to work on time. Multiple jobs, 2 hour commutes, early 20's insistance that going out 5 nights a week was a good thing, you name it, it got in the way of soft, luscious, sweet dreams sleep. I know that this luxury will not last forever. God willing (and heaven help us all) someday I might actually have children, and from what I've seen that means about 20 years before you can start hoping for the sort of peaceful, carefree sleep I'm talking about. At least on a regular basis. But that's an entirely different post. Good food, quality time with the yarn and the books, sweet zzzz's. This is what November means to me. 6 months and counting till next Spring... Pics of the hat/scarf set to come tomorrow... *No, I'm not. But I'm going to try to convince myself that I am. Let's see how long this reasoning can hold out. I'm giving an over/under of 17 days before I'm talking about moving to the Virgin Islands and working at a Tiki bar. It happens every year. **I'm the first to admit that I'm a sucker for hot slice of pizza, or a bar of Cadbury's (any) chocolate. I just can't do it on a regular basis. ***Reasonable hour = 7am or later. Before that is waking up early, anything after that is gravy in my book.

Love that Dirty Water

2004-10-28T10:58:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna tell you a story I'm gonna tell you about my town I'm gonna tell you a big bad story, baby Aww, it's all about my town Some might say it started when the Sox traded Nomar, Some might say it started after Game 7, '03 Some might say it started with John Henry in 2002 or maybe when the Sox traded Ruth... Yeah, down by the river Down by the banks of the river Charles (aw, that's what's happenin' baby) That's where you'll find me Along with lovers, fuggers, and thieves (aw, but they're cool people) Well I love that dirty water I don't have an answer for that. All I know is I'm so grateful for being able to watch it end like this. Oh, Boston, you're my home (oh, you're the Number One place) Frustrated women (I mean they're frustrated) Have to be in by twelve o'clock (oh, that's a shame) But I'm wishin' and a-hopin, oh That just once those doors weren't locked (I like to save time for my baby to walk around) Well I love that dirty water Oh, Boston, you're my home (oh, yeah) 10 hours ago I was dancing and clapping and cheering, watching history. Because I love that dirty water Oh, oh, Boston, you're my home (oh, yeah) And I haven't been able to stop. I've been dancing to the music in my head. I've been dancing in my cube. I've been bouncing down the sidewalk. And nothing's going to be able to wipe the sh*t-eating grin off my face. Thank you, Red Sox. Well, I love that dirty water (I love it, baby) I love that dirty water (I love Baw-stun) I love that dirty water (Have you heard about the Strangler?) I love that dirty water (I'm the man, I'm the man) I love that dirty water (Owww!) I love that dirty water (Come on, come on) P.S. I finished the cookies. This morning. P.P.S. That song is Dirty Water, by the Standells. How can you not love it.

Willful Self-Deception

2004-10-26T13:26:00.000-04:00

Last week was the longest week EVER. Having 5 straight ballgames from Saturday through Wednesday, and then waiting for the World Series to start, it was a 7 day span that seemed to stretch an eternity. This week, in contrast, has flown. Yes, I know it's only Wednesday, but for some reason, it feels like Monday. (This, I think, is because I spent the majority of the past two days in training seminars regarding a Big Project at work.) But there's only two more days this week, and they could be spent celebrating and going to parades. Far be it from me to mention what we would be celebrating, but if it happens, it would be glorious. In the meantime, Eric and I spent the weekend in NH, checking out the remnants of the fall colors: No, this picture does not accurately capture the beauty and fire of the NH foliage(even in late October) and Yes, I am officially the worst picture-taker ever to pick up a camera. And, unfortunately, this blog serves as evidence of this fact. Just scroll down and notice that all the pictures are slightly out of focus, not quite centered, and never do the subject justice. I swear to you, really, I try to take quality photos, I understand that part of this whole blog phenomenon is the ability to show and tell, with the emphasis on show, however, it seems the more I try, the worse it gets. In fact, I was so determined to take a clear representation of the panorama featured above, that I spent a good 20 minutes focusing, deliberating angles, etc., and in the process I thought I took at least 8 pictures. Nope. Evidentially, my camera is smarter than I am. If it decides the picture is not in focus enough for its liking, it won't take the picture. The fact that it decided that 6 of the 8 pictures I thought I took were not picture-worthy, to the point that it wouldn't even take the picture, makes me slightly embarrassed, especially when you factor in that if it didn't take the picture, it means that they were even worse than the ones it did take. Which we've already established aren't very good. This is something that I'm going to have to work on. If I weren't sulking right now about my picture taking ability, you would also have the pleasure of admiring a fuzzy picture of a large batch of Oatmeal-peanut butter-chocolate chip cookie dough that I've made for the United Way bake sale tomorrow. Being the industrious little baker, I whipped up enough dough for 90 cookies last night, with the plan of popping them all in the oven tonight while watching the baseball game. What I did NOT factor in was that tonight could be, well, you know, IT, and so, there's small chance I'm actually going to be home to bake the cookies. This is a problem, cause we all know those cookies ain't gonna bake themselves. My solution? I've convinced myself that I can squeeze in a batch while I run home to change after work, and then get a least 3 batches in tomorrow morning while getting ready for work. Somehow I think that even though I barely give myself time to dry my hair on a normal morning, that on the morning after what could be the biggest night in Boston Sports History, after getting what could be less than 5 hours of sleep, after drinking what could amount to all the beer in Boston, I will somehow wake up and be Betty Crocker. I, obviously, am very good at willfully deceiving myself. As for tonight and tomorrow, only time will tell. Go SOX!!!!!

Retreat

2004-10-22T13:52:00.000-04:00

Editor's Note: Yes, this is a knitting blog. We apologize for any confusion that this should be a baseball blog, and promise that normal programming will resume the week of Nov 1. For those that need to see knitting, please scroll down for filler pictures of slow-moving projects. So, last year, after the gut-wrenching, stage-setting Game 7 loss to the Yankees, Eric and I left town to try to gain some perspective. It was a last minute decision, born of frustration, despair and exhaustion. We needed to get away and heal. Luckily for us, my parents have a condo up in Campton, NH that we could take advantage of, and after a weekend of long walks in the woods, logs burning on the fireplace, and some Rummy 500 ass-kicking, we were refreshed enough to head back to Boston for a long winter. It was such a wonderful weekend, we decided to do it again this year. Never in a million years did I really think (because no one tries to get their hopes up, not in this town) that this weekend we'd be watching Game 1 of the World Series. And, of course, we didn't really plan it with baseball in mind. But, as it is, I'm going to be sitting with my cap on, my unwashed Schilling shirt (sorry, it's true, I'm not breaking the streak) with a fire roaring and a cold 12-pack in the fridge, cheering from the North Country. I can't wait. Besides watching baseball this weekend, I have not put aside my hopes of finding yarn shops to browse for Sweater-Vest-yarn. I'm a little disappointed though, because I was so excited about starting the Sweater Vest this weekend, that I walked all the way to Windsor Button from Back Bay, in the cold, drizzly rain today during lunch, just to buy the yarn for the sweater. And when I got to the store, I froze like a deer in headlights (or like Matsui after Pedro drilled him with a pitch). (Ha! That feels so good!!!!) Anyway, I froze. Do I want a work vest or a jeans vest? Red with blue detail? Grey Heather? Pink? Love the pink, but the shade I wanted only came in bulky. Found the most exquisite merino brown-but-but-not-really-brown-really-cool-multi-color-ply that obviously I can't even explain but it was $10 per 1.5oz and not the right gauge. Unfortunately, it was the price and not the gauge that kept me from buying it. It was so cool. But I'm not sure if it was right for the vest. Since this is my first venture into clothes, I'm discovering it's more difficult to pick out yarn and designs that I want to wear. It's a big commitment. So, I need to browse and let some ideas bounce around in my head for a little while. Who knows, maybe the right yarn is somewhere up there in the North Country, just waiting to be discovered. As promised, I actually knit last night. Here's the beginning of the hat: The hat that matches the never-ending-1/2-scarf: The scarf If nothing else, I'd really like to get the hat done this weekend, and we can all move on and look at cool pictures of new and interesting projects. Like maybe a Booga Bag like Elisa's...

Sweet Relief

2004-10-21T13:24:00.000-04:00

The Red Sox pulled off the greatest comeback of all time (and that's plain fact), against their most hated rivals, against whom they have not won the League to advance to the World Series in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium since 1904... read that again, 1904 won 4 straight after being down 3-0 in a seven game series. Something that hasn't ever been done before in MLB history, in 138 chances. And as I sit here, and as I sat watching the aftermath of the game, the overriding emotion coursing through my veins was relief. I could finally breathe. I could finally sleep without having baseball nightmares. I watched our boys dance on the lawn at Yankee stadium, ultimate victors in the most crushing defeat and the most appalling collapse in Yankee history. It was beautiful, and I am relieved. This does mean, of course, that finally I can knit again. I missed it so much, but I knit during (at least part of) the first 3 games, and they almost got swept, so I put the knitting away, and wouldn't let myself near it until I saw Timlin dance a jig on the pitcher's mound at Yankee Stadium. So, I'm getting my knit on tonight, and watching a game I don't have nearly as much invested in, packing for this weekend (more on that tomorrow), and getting a good night's sleep. It's about time. Side note: Please do not be concerned if you see things move around here over the course of the next month or so. You see, I started this little blog on a whim when I decided to join in the Yarn Harlot's thrum-along. Which means, that I put about, oh, 30 seconds thought into it before I started my first post (30 seconds being the amount of time it takes to Google "blog", find Blogger.com, and choose a template.) I also don't have internet at home, so I end up working on this at lunch or before/after work. Because of this, it will take a little time to do, but I'm going to attempt to personalize this page beyond the Blogger.Com template. We'll see how it goes.

The Bloody Red Sock

2004-10-20T11:12:00.000-04:00

All of you Red Sox fans know exactly what I'm talking about. Curt Schilling. I don't have words that can do this justice, so I'll say it plain. He pitched seven SEVEN innings, holding the Yanks to 1 run, with 3 sutures(!) holding his ankle tendon in place. The Red Sox have become the only team in MLB history to force a Game 7 after being in an 0-3 deficit. These aren't conjectures about the future, this is Fact. This is History. I Believe.

Ask, and Ye Shall Receive

2004-10-18T13:51:00.000-04:00

I’ve got a little bit of everything today, but I’m going to start and end with the Red Sox. I can’t help it. If you don’t care, just skip down a paragraph or two, and start there. People who want straight up knitting-talk will have to skip down a little farther than that, but there’s a link to a really cool knitting tool, so I promise it’s worth the wait (or at least worth skipping down). Only with the Red Sox can you have the most gut-wrenching, despicable and horrendous loss on Saturday night, only to be following by the most spectacular, inspiring, seed-of-hope type of game on Sunday night. Only with the Red Sox/Yankees are both of those games new MLB records for longest games ever played in the postseason. Only with the Red Sox is that seed-of-hope game pitched by Derek Lowe, the pitcher who was left off the starter roster, the man who on Sept 18 gave up 5 runs in the 1st inning against the Yankees, leading to an eventual 14 – 4 loss. Only with the Red Sox, does a 12th inning walk off home run to stave off elimination somehow give the Nation hope that we can take this series (further). I won’t say more. Only with the Red Sox does everyone in Boston stay up until 1:30am on a Sunday to watch the 4th game of an 0-3 series, show up to work exhausted, late, with a medium regular, and get the okay to leave at 4pm today, because their bosses want to leave and watch the game too. (How can you not love this town?) In other news: Saturday was gorgeous New England October weather, and so Eric and I spent the day roaming around Downtown Crossing, Faneuil Hall and Back Bay doing some clothes shopping. No yarn though, since I picked up the habit, all my extra money has been going towards yarn, and so I had to specifically budget for some fall work clothes. Got two cute shirts at Ann Taylor Loft (for half the price of one shirt at Ann Taylor…) I also scoped out some winter coats, but no purchases yet. I love the walking length pink wool coats this year, but feel like a grey one would be so much more practical (plus, there’s grey and black ones at Marshalls for 1/3 the price of the pretty pink ones at department and other retail stores.) Eric and I (un)officially house-warmed our apartment Saturday night. What began as the prospect of meeting up with another couple to grab a bite, and potentially going back to someone’s place to watch Saturday’s game, turned into let’s order food in, everyone bring a 30 pack and half of Southie showing up by the 3rd inning. It was a super-fun time, once we got past all the Sox Cynicism. It was also surprising to find out we could fit more than 8 people in our apartment, seeing that it’s a pretty tiny 1 bedroom. And, we ended up hitting the bottle harder than I expected. Although I was functional yesterday, Eric had it very rough for the majority of the day, but props to him, he still got all the laundry done. (Because he’s the best). I went grocery shopping, made a delectable mussels with red sauce minus the mussels and handmade Italian pesto bread. By the way, I figured out yesterday that you’re supposed to dissolve dry yeast before adding it to the flour. By figuring out, I really mean that I actually read and understood the package before using. The bread was soft, light and unbelievably delicious. Unlike the olive bread I made last week. Two points to who can guess why first. I also learned yesterday (again, the hard way) that I am a very silly girl for trying to go down to the fishmongers by Haymarket to find mussels on a Sunday. Friday and Saturdays ONLY. So, my question is, where do you go if you don’t have a car for fresh seafood on other days of the week? Oh, and I finally finished the never-ending ½ scarf!!! (Probably needs a new name now, but I haven’t woven in the ends yet, so I’ve got a little bit of time.) I really just wanted to cast on the matching hat, and be done with the long strip of dark blue K2P2. I’ve found that I really like knitting in the round on dpns too. Wow, I didn’t realize that was true until I actually typed it. But, yes, it’s true, even though it’s kind of a pain in the rear, I like it. By far the coolest knitting thing to happen though is that someone on the Boston SNB list posted a link to a site with examples of stitches. Long story short, I was looking around and I found this: Sweater Wheel Do you know what this is?? It’s something that if you put in a sweater style, yarn weight and size, it generates a generic sweater pattern!! AND it’s exactly what I was asking for in my last post. Evidentially, the Lord doth provideth. It’s a little tricky, only because it provides sizes in a convention I’ve never seen (and I even tried looking at European conversion charts, and that’s not it either) but the author of the site says it came from a sweater wheel she purchased in the 60’s and maybe they had different sizing conventions then. No worries though, when the wheel pumps out a pattern, it gives you a little guidance, i.e.: Misses Size: 12 (Chest measurement: 34”) This should give me enough guidance to start on a sweater vest. I didn’t think this would come about so soon, so now I have to start searching for yarn (maybe something I can do in NH this weekend? Perhaps…) I love the Wheel. Let’s hope it doesn’t let me down. Same goes for another big something happening at 5:10 today. Go SOX!!!!

Facing the facts

2004-10-14T13:22:00.000-04:00

Curt Schilling is probably out for the rest of the playoffs (short as that is looking right now). Coupled with Pedro’s fabulous, yet fruitless, performance at the Stadium last night, I’m forced to conclude that God hates the Red Sox, and all of Red Sox nation. That being said, I see only two alternatives: 1) Hit the bottle. 2) Start a new, exciting project, preferably something I can wear. In all honesty, it will probably be some combination of both, relying more heavily on option 1 over the course of the weekend until the end of this wretched series, and gradually weaning myself onto option 2. And that brings us to the fun part – what exactly will this new project be? I’m thinking that I’d really like a sweater vest. The way I see it, it’s the perfect project, because it’s going to be something completely new (I haven’t knit any actual clothing to this point) and yet, without having to deal with sleeves, it’s the perfect introduction to the full blown sweater. I like it. Problem is, of course, I haven’t been able to find a pattern I like. Does anyone have any suggestions on where I can find something like these? (The first one is from JCrew and the second is a Le Tigre from the Nordstrom online store.) Something like this Or this I feel like I could probably wing it, or modify a basic pattern if someone could even give me guidelines like, for a small/medium size with an aran weight wool, you'd want to cast on approximately XX stitches, knit up until you want the armholes/neckhole, and start your edging sort of thing. (Am I making this too simplistic? Obviously, I have no real idea what this will entail.) Thanks for any help in advance!!

Mixed bag

2004-10-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

Good news: It only took a couple of AA batteries to fix my camera. Bad news: It will take a lot more than a couple of AA batteries to fix Curt Schilling’s ankle. Last night’s game left me with such mixed emotions (from Oh My God I can’t believe Curt gave up 6 runs!!! to Oh My God I can’t believe we’ve scored 7 runs over the course of 4 outs, we’re in this, we’re in this!!!) that I don’t know what to think or hope, but it’s only Game One, and although that’s good for the Red Sox, it’s very bad for my inner well-being and overall mental/physical health. Let’s move on. It is my distinct pleasure to present the Fleece Artist Thrummed Mitten: The Mitten! I love it. The Red is a little bright in this picture, but that’s the lighting. And, although you can’t see it, the long twisty thrums are coming back to haunt me. I’m not sure if I’ll trim them (or if I even can trim them, they’ve started forming a mass of thrums on the inside…). I’ll show pictures tomorrow before I do anything. Here too, are the pictures of the yarn purchases discussed in yesterday’s post: That blue isn't as dark in real life It's softer than it looks, I swear Erin go braugh! I also have made some progress on the never-ending ½ scarf. I kept my promise and knitted right up until the beginning of last night’s game, but the knitting goddess apparently decided to withhold her favor. I don’t know why, maybe she’s bored with the scarf too, but far be it from me to speculate upon the goddess’s decisions. Maybe she just wanted to keep this series interesting and suspenseful. (Please let that be it. Please?)

Promises, promises

2004-10-12T10:13:00.000-04:00

The Red Sox won in 3. And so, to appease the knitting gods, I knitted like hell, and completed the Fleece Artist thrummed mitten as promised. (insert picture here) You may be asking yourself, where's the picture of the mitten?? She's been stringing me along for days, weeks, all to see what the silly mitten was going to look like completed, and she says she's done it, but where's the proof??? Yes, I know I promised pictures of a completed mitten for this morning. And really, I do have a completed mitten. I stayed up super late on Sunday to finish it (and to give myself time to finish the 1/2 scarf and start the matching hat by last night - the end of our long, Columbus Day weekend). And yes, I love the finished mitten in its glorious Fleece Artist colors and goodness. It's warm and soft and fuzzy and colorful and wonderful, but you're going to have to imagine all these things, because my digital camera isn't working. I believe it's just that the batteries ran out, but I'll know for sure tonight. The symptoms all point that way (it was showing low battery warnings for at least a week), however, when I swapped the batteries from the remote in to the camera to just sneak a few pictures of the mitten for this morning, the camera allowed me to view pictures I had already taken, but not take new pictures. This concerns me. But it's not time to start panicking yet. Hopefully, only a couple of AA batteries are required. Anyway. Let's pretend I did have a camera. In addition to several gorgeous (and in focus) pictures of the Fleece Artist mitten, you'd see pictures of new yarn purchases (yesterday Windsor Button in Downtown Crossing had a 20% off sale on all yarns!) so of course I bought some gorgeous Kathmandu Aran mohair/cashmere blend in a soft blue grey with specks for a pair of mittens. I know you think I might be out of my mind for wanting to knit another pair of mittens after my epic struggle with the current mitten, however, I'm approaching this thinking that any normal mitten after the F.A. mitten will be a piece of cake. (Yes, those words will probably come back to haunt me.) You'd also see purchases of a mitten/hat/scarf set for my youngest brother who is super cool (even at 13 years old) and when he watched me starting the 1/2 scarf, he thought it was so neat and asked me to make him a set. I'm hoping I can do a cool stripe thing, because I really want him to like it. Anyway, I picked out this dark blue and dark red (both with cool flecks) set, that I think could turn out pretty neat. Seriously, I can't wait to show pictures of it. My other younger brother, also super super cool, asked me for a scarf designed after the Irish Flag. And while I don't think this will necessarily make for the most handsome scarf, I do think that he, in his complete and total 19-year-old-ness will love wearing it, especially when he's at a kegger. And so God love him, I bought the yarn for it. The colors are somewhat jarring, but the yarn was super cheap ($2/skein) and that's cool. And in non-knitting news, you'd also see pictures of a fresh handmade loaf of olive bread, a loaf I had to use YEAST for and actually had to knead AND let rise. These were things I was very concerned about doing correctly, but the bread, although somewhat misshapen, came out delicious. And since no one can prove otherwise, let's just move on... Some of you from New England may have noticed that I haven't made any mention of a certain baseball series that may be happening to start tonight. I don't dare tempt fate any more than I've already done, but I am planning on knitting all afternoon as an offering to the knitting gods as it seemed to help for the first series. I don't know what sort of sway the knitting gods have over the baseball gods, but I imagine it may have something to do with the fact that the knitting gods wield sharp needles. It could also be that it's the knitting god(desses) that the baseball gods come home to at the end of the day, and well, you all know what sort of sway that can lead to. And so, I'm not taking any chances. I might not be able to knit during the game, but I'll knit my little heart out right up until the first pitch. GO SOX!!!!!!!!

It's October again

2004-10-07T17:28:00.000-04:00

The whole reason I started knitting is because of the Red Sox. Don't worry, I’m not so crazy that I’ve spent all season knitting cabled hats for Shilling and crew, I am a completely different kind of out-of-my-mind about this team. Hang with me, and I will make my point about knitting, I promise. You see, after having my heart ripped out by last year’s gut wrenching Game 7 of the ALCS, I was hooked on the Sox. Before last year, I was the sort of Sox fan that loved going to Fenway for a handful of games each season, knew most of the players on the team, and checked the standings every day or so to see how things were going. That all changed during the 2003 postseason. I became a Red Sox junkie. This year I watched almost every game on NESN, or listened to it on WEEI if I was in the car. Yes, 162 games at 3 hours each is a lot of time watching baseball. Some would call it obsessive, but what do they know? I can’t help it. I love this team. (Okay, I took 2 weeks in July off because I was on vacation in the islands, and they were breaking my heart again with their .500 baseball and zombie-like playing. I left the day after the 13-inning loss to the Yankees on July 1st. I needed a rest from the turmoil.) But, I did feel like a total couch potato spending so much time being a Red Sox psyc^^^^ fan. That’s where the knitting comes in. You see, I was inspired by a friend who knitted fanatically throughout the aforementioned 2003 ALCS. Supposedly, the knitting helped her channel her nervous energy. Seeing that my nervous energy channeled itself through a twitch over my right eye, and the persistent urge to rock back and forth in my seat, I thought she might be on to something. And here’s the whole point: The 2004 postseason has begun. The Red Sox are two games up to nothing in a 5 game series, and I discovered last night during a 4 hour game (with a 10pm start time!) that I can’t knit a stitch during the postseason. I’m too nervous/excited. I have to watch everything. And the awful part is, we're only two games in on the whole show. I did make a some progress before the game last night on the mittens, I just got to the thumbhole, but you’ll see that the mitten looks just like it did before, just longer. I really like how it’s turning out, hopefully the Sox finish this series in 3 so they have the weekend to rest, and I have the weekend to knit, and thus, feed the blog. I'd like to have something new to show in the next couple of days, because the blog gods frown heavily upon trying to pass off new pictures of the same project (with little progress) as something interesting, and Lord knows, the last thing we need around here is another curse. Go Sox!!!! I've reached the thumb gusset

Progress!

2004-10-05T10:57:00.002-04:00

To make up for lost knitting on Thursday night, and to take advantage to having the apartment to myself Friday night, I hunkered down with some wine, some chocolate and the Fleece Artist mittens to get some serious thrumming done. All in all, it went well. Progress If you're thinking, boy that hand looks a midgen too big for that mitten, no worries, it's Eric's hand, and if he's lucky, he'll get his own pair in good time. The guinea pig pair is for me and my smaller hands. But I digress. The reason that I was able to make such progress (and the majority of what you see in the picture above took me 4 hours to knit, although I think after this weekend, my speed and rhythm have started to pick up pace as I’ve become more comfortable with knitting in the round) is that I took Norma’s advice and embraced the technique of straight thrums. For anyone struggling with getting the thrums to stay looped up, I highly recommend it. Twisty Thrums Plus, you don’t have to worry about getting your fingers caught in the loops when you’re actually trying to use the mittens, which looked like it could be a danger with the loopy thrums I was making… Anyway, the reason that I don’t have at least one mitten finished by now is that I decided on Saturday afternoon that I’d be able to knit the Umbilical Cord Hat from the Stitch’n’Bitch book by Debbie Stoller in time for my youngest cousin’s christening on Sunday morning. Long story short, I finished it on the train, Sunday morning with about 5 minutes to spare. Overall, it was a cinch to knit up, even if it did suck up all of my knitting energy for the weekend. Anyone looking for a relatively quick baby gift should consider making it – it’s a fantabulously cute little hat. Anyway, I was so busy knitting it, and so concerned that it wasn’t going to get done, that I didn’t even get a chance to snap a picture of it, so a picture in retrospect of the yarn I used will have to suffice. For the baby hat Anyway, I’m super happy about how the mittens are turning out, I love the colors, I’m happy about the thrums and I’m finally getting the hang of it. I’m hoping they’ll start to move more quickly now, but with the Red Sox in the playoffs, it could go either way. That is, either psycho/nervous knitting for the duration of each game, or I might not even be able to hold the needles to get any of it done because I can’t take my eyes of the screen. I don’t know. Maybe Eric's scarf will get some playoff love (but I'm worried about sending out Yankees vibes, because the scarf is blue and grey, I'm in a serious bind here.) Go Sox!!!

KUI

2004-10-01T11:01:00.000-04:00

Evening, miss. Well, hello, officer. Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the needles. Do you know why I’ve stopped you tonight? No officer, I don’t. Miss, we’ve been monitoring knitting activity in this area, and you were exhibiting distinct signs of knitting under the influence just now. Why officer, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you trying to tell me that your needles weren’t swaying, your stitches aren’t grossly uneven, and that several loops aren’t in danger of falling off the needles?? You’re going to have to come up with something better than that. Where were you earlier this evening? I only went out for a few drinks with some co-workers… Only a few, miss? Will you please come over here, I’d like to perform a test. Just what I thought. Miss, you’re blowing a 0.03, just over the limit for dpns, and well over the state limit for thrums. Do you know what kind of trouble you could get yourself into? You think you have enough trouble with thrums clear-headed, you’re just a fool to try this sort of thing intoxicated. I’m so sorry officer, I really didn’t mean to endanger the mittens like this. I’m a beginner knitter, I didn’t know. What’s going to happen?? Don’t worry miss, why don’t you pick up that nice scarf over there and work on that until you’ve sobered up a bit. That's a good idea officer, thank you so much. Just don't let this happen again. Knitting under the influence can not only cause harm to your and you knitting, but can have severe penalties under the law, and it wouldn't be good for a nice girl like you to get into that sort of trouble. You keep your nose clean, you hear? (Needless to say, there was little progress on the mittens last night, but the scarf did get a little bit of clumsy attention. More mitten pictures to come, Monday AM)

Domesticity

2004-09-30T13:34:00.000-04:00

Last night, in a fit of domesticity, I decided to make chicken stock. No, I had never made stock before. Yes, I had most of the things I needed, and what I didn’t have, I could improvise. Yes, I was also planning on unraveling my first attempt at thrummed mittens, and re-starting a different pattern. After the chicken stock nearly boiled over twice, I’m thinking that at this stage in the game it’s probably not a good idea to be mixing kitchen challenges and knitting challenges (on a weeknight) if I hope to get enough sleep to function the next day at work. Or keep my sanity. When he learned of my plan, Eric decided to retire to the basement to work on some shelves for the apartment. This was wise. However, at the end of the night I ended up with chicken stock that smelled like Grandma’s kitchen **, and this: Look at those 'V's! I know it’s not a lot. (But look at those V’s! Those are what I’m really proud of.) It’s not a lot because I had to start over 3 different times, for various reasons. Probably almost every reason one might have to start over after one or two rows, but the good news is, I didn’t make any mistake twice. (I just made every mistake, once.) Between the stock and the continuous ripping, there may have been fits of frustration, swearing and maybe even angry tears. During one of his visits upstairs, Eric witnessed one of these fits, and brought this over to the table: A little help Not only was this sweet, thoughtful and ultimately helpful, it was also wise (again). Did I mention that he’s the best? (He also brought home that last thing I needed to make the chicken stock, a fine-looking sturdy strainer. Very important. After making the stock I see that my back-up plan to use the colander would not have worked. Thank you Eric.) Anyway, I’m concerned about my thrums again. I think they heard about my comments yesterday, and decided to show me a thing or two. They’re a little out of control, and that doesn’t necessarily bother me, I’m just worried that my fingers will get caught in the loops when I finally try to put these puppies on. Does anyone know whether or not I should be worried about this? Out of control thrums ** I don’t know whose Grandma’s kitchen, but I’m sure someone’s Grandma’s kitchen smelled as good as this stock. In my family (of Irish heritage), we don’t tend to make complicated food. ‘Why make it, when you can buy it canned or frozen?’ is our motto. You can see, this stock thing was a big step for me.

Who's your Daddy?

2004-09-29T11:24:00.000-04:00

So, I’m really proud of myself. Last night I learned to knit in the round AND thrum. Well, I’m not sure if I actually learned to thrum, it’s more like I attempted to thrum, and that the very nature of this gorgeous, cloudlike roving thwarted almost every attempt. It looks so beautiful and innocent... Except one: One of these thrums is not like the others See that little guy on the right? I think he came out okay. He was the last one I made, and I think the reason he came out okay was because I had become so frustrated with how difficult the roving was to handle, that I just let him have it. I wasn’t afraid to push him into place, twist him into submission, and rope him into my mitten. I needed to show the thrums who, exactly, their mistress is. And it worked. Like everything else I’ve learned about knitting, I learned it accidentally, under duress and out of frustration, but hot damn, it is so satisfying when you get it to work. The other big thing, which was a huge accomplishment for me, was the whole knitting in the round thing. It wasn’t until I finished the cuff, and started knitting each stitch that I realized I was knitting inside-out. I’ve read that this is a common mistake, but it wasn’t until all my knit stitches looked like purls that I figured out something was wrong. I’m not gonna lie, I was sort of relieved when I realized this, because after ripping out the inside-out knits, and twisting the cuff around so that it was right-side-in, I found that when I held the needles the correct way and knit in the front of the round, the needles were much easier to manage. That being said, does anyone have any good suggestions on how to hold the needles when knitting in the round so that they don’t get in the way? Also, I was hoping someone might have a tip for how to keep the thrums out of the way as you continue knitting. I know that I’m going to have to rip back and re-do those thrums (more on this in a minute) so that they’re not so gargantuan, but, still, it seems to me that things could get hairy in there, even with normal sized thrums. Dilemma of the Day: I know that I have to rip back and start the main part of the mitten over, which is totally fine with me. But, what I’m thinking is that I might unravel the whole thing, and instead of the K2P2 ribbing pattern, try knitting the Fleece artist pattern, which I think looks really nice. Problem is, the Fleece Artist pattern isn’t quite as clear as the Yarn Harlot’s step by step pattern, and maybe I should play it safe (ha!) with my first pair of mittens. Plus, although I like the Fleece Artist pattern better, I think the Yarn Harlot pattern is more practical with the tighter ribbing to keep the mitten on. Any thoughts?

Leaves on the Playground

2004-09-28T13:59:00.000-04:00

WhooHOO!!! I just got a package filled with Fleece Artist goodness!!! Fleece Artist Goodness You might be admiring my strategic use of the black hole punch to prop up the bundle. Why, might you ask, is she taking pictures of wool at her desk at work? (I'm sure my co-workers were wondering.) Did you know that the kind folks at UPS will re-deliver a package to another address if you are unable to be at home during normal delivery times? Hence, after a short phone conversation with UPS yesterday, this beautiful delivery was arranged. Good thing to know if you, like me, work during normal business hours AND live in an apartment building. (Note: UPS will NOT leave packages in public hallways, and I suppose for good reason...) Point being, I wish I had thought of having it delivered to work in the first place. That way, I would have been showing pictures of my new thrummed mitten cuff, instead of the package I just received at work. That's not to say that I didn't come empty-handed. It just means that if it weren't for my unexpected delivery here at work, this blog entry would've resembled the sort of 3rd grade show and tell day where you grabbed some leaves off the ground before the bell rang because you couldn't find anything better before school started. So here are my leaves, the aforementioned 1 1/2 scarves: 1 Scarf You will note a couple of things looking at these pictures... 1) I used a beautifully soft cotton angora blend for this scarf. As soon as I touched it I knew I had to knit it. 2) Unfortunately, I didn't know if I knit it in stockinette stitch, it would come out resembling a tube sock. I, however, still love it. Soft Pink Stockinette 3) I'm still learning how to use my digital camera to its best advantage. Ahhh, my first project that I'm abandoni... placing aside to work on something else, for the time being. It's also my first project in wool, and it's amazing after starting on cotton/angora how much give the wool has while knitting. It's fabulous. 1/2 Scarf More pictures tomorrow! Hopefully of a partially completed thrummed mitten....

It Begins

2004-09-27T13:46:00.000-04:00

I don't know what I've roped myself into. When I saw these (http://www.fleeceartist.com/kits_thrummittssocks.html) mittens on the Yarn Harlot's blog (http://www.yarnharlot.ca) I felt that I had to have them. Being fairly new to knitting (fairly new = completing 1 1/2 scarves) I am just beginning to realize that my overwhelming desire to have those gorgeous mittens will not be satiated by running to the store, but rather, by knitting thrummed mittens, in the round, two things that I have no idea how to do. In fact, I don't even own double pointed needles. (Yet.) By the way, I didn't even know that 'thrummed' was a real word until 2 weeks ago. However, somehow, I think that I will be able to thrum-along with the Yarn Harlot herself, and all the other accomplished, experienced knitters who frequent her site. I've decided to create this site so that as we all thrum along, you all can watch my attempt at the (seemingly) impossible, and laugh your arses off. I hope you'll enjoy it, cause I know for sure I will. (Now, hopefully my kit will come in the mail today, so that I can actually get this show on the road...)