Knitting in the Shadows

Weekend.... whoooosh....

Whoosh.
There was a weekend.  It went whoooosh.

But while it was flying by, some knitting was done.

I finished the Socks de la Mer -- and even bathed them.  They feel marvelous:

But, if you look at them in the right light (most light actually, just not that picture up there), you'll notice something odd.  Despite being knit from a single skein of yarn (Fleece Artist Merino 2/6), they're different colours!

In real life, one most definitely reads "green" and the other reads "blue".  I find that odd.

Oh well.

While we're looking at green and blue... let's have a look at Willow.

I think the end is in sight!  This weekend, after that tinking incident last week, we got back on track.  I took a tip from Elizabeth, and applies many stitch markers to make sure the counts were all right..

In the process I discovered that some large chunk of my markers have gone walk about.  Either I'm going to do some serious cleaning around here, and hope they turn up, or, I'm going to take advantage of my Seasons of Lace discount with certain sponsors, and buy me some new ones.  Which do you think I'll do???

And finally, I missed Knitting with Nora yesterday, but I did knit some more on my Knitting with Nora project:  Here are new pictures of Boing!

I just love me some Malabrigo!  And I'm wishing I could find another ... oh... four? skeins of this Jacinto color somewhere....

Yummmm.
What did YOU knit last weekend?

On Rants and Silly Graphs and Portable Knitting

Today, I get to skip a rant that I keep meaning to make.  I get to skip it because kmkat  has already done it.  She says much of what I'd like to say about the stuff in folks blogs that ensures spammers and bots don't clutter their comments.  I'll happily wait while you read (she has all these cool screen shots! and thus did a much better job than I would do).  The short version is: most of these captcha things make commenting HARD ... especially TypePad's insistence that we do it three times per post.  I hate them.  I hate them a lot.  They sometimes mean that a comment I would have made does not get made.  (I don't get to play, but you don't get to receive a comment).

So, instead of ranting about that, I'll whine a bit about the return of cold weather (the pool opens today? riiiight).  And then think more about knitting.

But before I show you where my knitting has gone... allow me to share with you a little something that Norma sicced on me...(okay all of her blog readers).

more graph humor and song chart memes

smirk.  If you are unfamiliar with that Holy Grail flick, you might not get this one.  But then, without Eddie Izzard, you wouldn't have gotten Norma's (which I did). 

I love this.  Graph Jam is dangerous.

Anyway.  My knitting has been out and about with me this week.  Willow went with me to the girls' piano lessons.  It wasn't pretty

I found an insurmountable error. As you can see.... tinking back even one row creates quite the pile of yarn.  I'm hoping that one row was far enough.  She's back in her wee sack until she gets over the trauma.

Boing experienced some trauma of her own.

I took her with me to shop for bathing suits for the girls (and a few bits of summer wear, like, shorts...

She wasn't impressed by the lighting in the dressing rooms.

And though she was with me today, she declined to be photographed in the same place that "those French sounding socks" and that "unpronounceable shawl" were posing.

Good thing we got those suits.... the pool opened today. Elizabeth's Irtfa'a wasn't so uppity.

The Socks de La Mer was, more or less, in it's element.

(And yes, you do see the beginnings of the toe!  I should be kitchenering tomorrow!)

Sunday Afternoon in the Park

What Your Handwriting Says About You

You are a laid back person with rather low energy. You aren't lazy... you *are* sensitive and empathetic. You are very extroverted and outgoing. You are loving, friendly, and supportive. However, you are also manipulative and controlling at times. You are very detail oriented and meticulous. You are a careful thinker and a true intellectual. You need a bit of space in your life, but you're not a recluse. You expect people to give you a small amount of privacy, and you respect their privacy as well. You are somewhat traditional, but you are also open to change. You listen to your head and your heart. You are a decent communicator. You eventually get your point across, but sometimes you leave things a bit ambiguous.

What Does Your Handwriting Say About You?

I find it amusing that Nora's handwriting says the same thing about her.

But I'm not going to taunt you with nothing more than a Blogthing...  I'm going to show you what happens when I take my kid to get enough plants to fill a planter:

There are six plants in each of those bags.  One bag is actually for the garden... but the rest are herbs.

Here is C's planter - fresh from the planting this morning:

It  now contains three trailing flowering things for pretty, and one each purple sage, French thyme, chamomile, curry, and spearmint [and no, I've no idea how she chose those].

Luckily, in addition to that one, I happened to have four others in need of new plants:

Herbs are such fun.  I find it amusing that these two plants both claim to be basil:

There were still a few plants left over.  It turns out that two of the varieties of Rosemary I found plan on getting several feet tall.  I put them in the round planters near the gazebo. (photos forthcoming when they're finished).  One of the two Lavenders I wound up bringing home seems like it will work fine there.  The other lavender will just have to go in the ground -- it too gets bigger than I'd paid attention to. (And why do I insist on spelling Lavendar the British way, thus having to fix it repeatedly?).

(And no, you don't get to hear about the tree yet).

Once we got our planting done, we hung around the house for awhile, and discussed exactly when C would be getting one of her presents. We'll be getting her ears pierced as soon as humanly possible -- but not today.  Today, birthday or no, C had to go play in the park.  Clarinet that is.  Evidently her band director thinks that the year should end with a Concert in the Park.

Here we see a bunch of kids getting ready (mine has her back to us... oh well).

I think they all look great.

They of course, think they look like dorks.

Here's the crowd, before any of the playing actually began

Eventually, it was C's band's turn, and they assumed their chairs:

I don't know if you can see them, but they've all got clothespins -- trying (more successfully than not) to keep their music from blowing away.

Soon enough, they settled down to playing some good tunes.

It was a good concert.

J took it lying down... and I noticed something odd about her "jewelry".

Yep... that's a hospital bracelet.  Why on earth is she still wearing it? And what do I have to do to get her to let me cut it off??  (Are all kids this... er... weird?).

So.  I spent a good 2 3/4 hours hanging out in the park.  I'll bet you'll never guess what I did with all this time guarding the blanket?  Why, I knit socks, of course!

Sock de la Mer quite enjoyed the music.  I got from the end of the gusset about 1/2 way down the foot (perhaps a tad further).  I did spy another knitter in the wild, listening to the bands play, but I didn't get my camera out fast enough to catch her for the blog.

After the concert -- it was time for birthday dinner and cake and all that good birthday stuff.  C claims to have had a good day.  I did too.  I think that counts as one in the win column for us!

Four Hundred! (and hoping for a steady 94)

This is my four hundredth post on this server.
Holy cow!

I thought, for a minute or three, that I ought to make this a momentous post.  I mean four hundred.  That's a lot of posts.  I ought to say something significant. Something memorable -- or inspiring.

That's what I was thinking this weekend, when all I had was a regular yummy post about Irtfa'a.

Then, I pondered the viability of turning this post into a good Mothers' Day Post. Perhaps that would be a fitting post for my four hundredth.

Then my daughter woke up struggling to breathe....so instead of spending Mothers' Day being pampered and/or writing peaens to mothers generally, and my mothers in particular, I spent it mothering.  I was reminded of the power of mothers' intuition:  I knew when the inhaler would be enough, and how to get a new one.  I knew when to let her nap and just rest.

And I knew before she told me when the inhaler was NOT enough.  I tried to ignore the warning bells that said "no, you can't wait until the doctor's appointment you made for tomorrow (for other reasons)", but soon yielded to the Mother's KNOWLEDGE that this time, we go to the ER.  I confirmed with the Advisory Nurse on call while J got her shoes.

This year, J's lips did not turn blue.  This year she was not crying because it hurt so much to breathe.  But this year, we got to spend the night in the hospital because we could not get her oxygen levels up to the necessary 94 (to be sure they wouldn't plummet again) without oxygen.  At as much as 3 liters per minute at one point.

So. Here we are.  In the lovely new pediatrics unit (where they have wifi!), where some 16 hours and five nebulizer treatments after we arrived, J is maintaining a decent oxygen level at only 1 liter of extra oxygen and .... she's finally eating something!  They tell us that as soon as she can maintain a good oxygen level on zero extra oxygen .... while walking at a measured pace around the ward, she can go home.

I think, in retrospect, that I'd prefer to have had nothing more spectacular to offer than the update on Irtfa'a.  But I'm truly pleased that this report does not include scary complications that make the doctors look tense.

I'm surprised at how little knitting I've actually gotten done, given how long I've done nothing but sit with J while they nebulized and oxygenated and tested her.  I've made some (possibly even visible) progress on Chrysopolis, and Sock de La Mer has gotten about half of a heel flap. But really, all I really have to show you are the pictures of Irtfa'a that Elizabeth and I took last week.

There we are: two lovely growing shawls.  At first blush, you'd think that there's no reason they should be different sizes.  We're both using the same yarn and the very same needles!  And, almost, the same pattern.  Of course, me, being, me .... I had to go and change things.  The lower one (mine) has an extra repeat of the large feathers in it.  So it gets to be bigger.  I don't think I'll add to the smaller feathered section, but then again... who knows.... that's ages away yet. Well, about 60 rows anyway.

Here are some shots to let you see them more closely:
Elizabeth's Irtfa'a:

See all the pretty markers?

and mine:

practically a marker free zone in comparison (and a blurry picture -- sorry).  I do love markers... I just don't use as many as E does when the repeats are short.

Socks .. and sock thoughts ... and Seasons

I seem to have missed a post that I was sure I'd written.  If I did, it's all gone now, consumed by the ether.  But that's okay -- I can do it now.  Better late than never.  And it's fitting, since today, so far, I'm thinking about socks.

My second Sock de la Mer is at that point in top-down socks that I find rather magical.  It's at a cusp -- it could still be something else as long as I don't knit that next row, in which I begin the heel.  I love that feeling...that sense of potential.

Will this be a mitt of some sort? a glove? a mitten? a fingerless thing to keep wrists warm?

Or is it the start of a sleeve?

It's a sock.... a lovely nifty sock....

I don't know if you can see them, but on this sock, I couldn't resist playing with something that Anne said in her description of what she was doing with this sock design.  She sees seaweed waving up the leg, with the inevitable air bubbles escaping out of the top to form the ribbing.  I thought it would be fun to let a few of those air bubbles show up in the leg of the sock, as they work their way up to the ribbing/surface.  I put the bubble cables in randomly around the leg.

I'll use this to distinguish more easily between right and left socks (since I do that right and left toe thing when I knit socks.)

I thought it was fun...

And while we're on socks, here's something I evidently forgot to show you.  Last weekend, I finished DH's Harlequin socks!

The tops are as close to the same as I could get -- but evidently the balls were put up as inverses or something.  The toes clearly do not match.  But.... they match DH's toes, and that's what's important, right?

After all, when he's wearing them (which he has done -- they're already in the laundry), they look more like this:

Another one for the FO pile (and these were in Mission Possible too... w00t)

Knitting With Nora leads to.... -- I've REALLY Done it Now

So, yesterday, being Monday, I was supposed to post about my progress Knitting with Nora.  I was supposed to tell you all about the new Icarus, and Boing!

Ooops.  I got side tracked.  More on that in a minute.

I did not cast on for Icarus.  I'm still dithering over whether to actually knit a straight Icarus, or ... to test Daedelus (my variation on Icarus whose chart really needs tuning so I can share it).  I've asked Joan, who gifted me with the lovely luscious yarn from which I'll be knitting Icaraus (Daedelus?), but she's rather pre-occupied, what with going to Ann Arbor for a clinical trial and all, and hasn't chimed in with her opinion.

I did, however, spend a bit of time with Boing! 

See... its growing!

And I'm liking it.

And best of all, this one is a pattern that I think I'll have all memorized in about one, maybe two more repeats.  That means I won't be chained to the chart anymore. (I'm still chained to the chart/instructions with the second Sock de la Mer).

Obviously, that wee bit (well, okay doubling the previous entry, but still) of lace didn't occupy my whole day Monday.

What did?

Seasons of Lace.  That's what.  It turns out that I'm absolutely stark raving bonkers.  And though Knitting with Nora ought to provide me with plenty of ways to share lace knitting with my bloggerly buddies, it seems I wanted more.  I'm sure someone has told me that more isn't necessarily better, but I don't listen very well.  I wanted more.

I wanted to sign up for a Summer of Lace.  Alas, no one seemed to have been running a Summer of Lace.  So I whined about it to Maria, and discussed it with Alyse.  And now...

Well, now we seem to be organizing Seasons of Lace, which will begin with Summer of Lace 2008 (running from June 1 to September 23).  I set up a Ravelry group -- and it exploded within hours. (Within two minutes of setting it up, there were five members!  And neither Alyse nor Maria were among them.  As of this moment there are 130!).  Maria has set up a flick'r group  and it's ready.  I've discovered an assertive part of myself that I didn't think existed, and actually have some positive responses to my solicitations for prize donors...The website/blog will be up and running very soon (Alyse has done some stunning work here in no time folks).  I need to finish writing up the rules of the road etc, and Alyse needs to finish setting it up so you can all join up... and we'll be LIVE!   I'll let you know as soon as we're really up and running.

I'm scared.

What if it doesn't work?  What if no one donates prizes? (Did I mention that there will be prizes? -- at least I hope there will be prizes.)  Or, more likely, what if administering this baby eats up all my lace knitting time???  It certainly ate Monday.  And I still need to find more prize donors, and some worthy lace judges for the few competitions we'll have..

I think I'd best go spend some time with the Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth and Irtfa'a.

 

 

Some people's brains....Some people's lace

In the news today, we see that some people's version of reality is vastly different from the rest of us.  The Dallas News reports that a man in his 20's attempted to pass a $360,000,000,000 check.  Yes, that's $360 BILLION!  Like someone would believe that a man in his 20's would have such a check to cash??? I wonder what he was smokin'?

Meanwhile, I'm being naughty again.  I'm mere inches away from finishing DH's socks, I've got three other lace projects on the needles, I've got a gorgeous Sock de la Mer to knit, not to mention Deep Breath or those pesky Mission 2008 projects to work on.  So what did I do?

Duh.

Let me introduce you to Boing!


For the next progress photo, I hope to have four hands, so I can show you some open lace....  and    Yes, I did cast on quite a bit ago.  Then we had a little tiff, and now that I have reopened my brain to the reality of reading simple and well drawn charts...we're off and springing.  Gotta love this color too.  My camera didn't get it quite right, but we'll try again soon.  It's a perfect foil for the gray blustery day that's gusting around outside.

That wind kept me from enjoying the bit of yoga I'd planned to do on my patio today.  The wind thought my yoga mat would make a fine toy.  I can see it now...... only Down Dog or Savasana would ensure that the mat wouldn't flick up and tap me on the head or leg or.....  I yoga'd inside instead.

ETA:

When I got home from fetching the kids today, I found a glorious surprise!  Lookee what Joan (that was you wasn't it Joan??) sent me!

She's totally enabling my Knitting With Nora plans.  There are several of us who will be knitting Icarus (or Icarus on Ravelry) together out of this lovely yarn!