Monday, December 28, 2009

Ruminations

It's 6:19 am central standard time, and I'm sitting here in the Austin airport, waiting for my 7:05 am flight. I arrived in sunny central Texas on the 16th, and have been enjoying the weather (ok, not the wind so much) and the sun. I meant to post earlier, but, well, things just got away from me.

On the 16th (a Wednesday) I sat in a much different airport, nearly as early in the morning, knitting away (the caffeine had kicked in, I'm still waiting for this morning's tea). By the time they called for boarding, I'd gotten this far:

That is a good start to Traveling Woman by Feministy.com. The yarn is Sunshine Yarn Luxury Sport in "maroon bells" that I got as part of a swap with the NCIS Knitters group on Ravelry. By the time I landed for my 3 hour layover in Pheonix, it looked like this:

That is the completed stocking stitch portion of the shawl. YAY!!! However, by this time I was a little brain fuzzy from having been up since 3:30 am and flying all morning (which always makes me extra fuzzy). That's as far as the knitting got for the day. On my second flight I read Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs, and at one point I tried to sleep (which didn't work).

I had a busy time once I got into Austin, and my knitting time decreased so that I didn't finish my shawl until the 22nd. I've worn it every day since. I love it. It's soft. It's smooshy. It's warm. It's maroon. Basically, it's knitting perfection.

It needs to be reblocked, and I'm going to steam the ever loving life out of it to see if it will help hold the block. Regardless, I love it. I modified it sligtly due to a smaller yardage of my yarn than what was called for. I used 250 yards of sport weight instead of 385 yards of fingering, so instead of starting the lace section with 11 repeats, I started with 9. I also used US 5 needles instead of US 6 needles because I like my 5s better. It makes it a little smaller overall, but I'm not known for being a big person so it fits me perfectly.

After this I ended up doing some impromptu last minute Christmas knitting at the request of my mom. She saw my Sand Dollar Hat and loved it, so she bought some Patons Silk Bamboo in Sapphire and I knit her up one of her own. I finished and blocked it yesterday, and neglected to take pictures of the finished product.

In addition to being busy, I was also distracted from my knitting by this:


This is Girlie, by parent's 18 year old blind cat. Everything she does is cute beyond all reason. She slept with me almost every night. She sought me out when she wasn't asleep. I doted on her. I miss her already.

Ok, they just called the start of boarding. I've got a short wait, I didn't log on to get my boarding pass in time (even though I was awake, cleaning up after Girlie who'd had an upset tummy).

Friday, December 4, 2009

And Relax

I turned in my last term paper this morning, which means I am not enjoying some well deserved FREEDOM!!! As promised in the previous post, I'm here with lots of pictures to share with you.

First off, I have an update on my ant infestation. They're still infesting. Despite the multiple locations of poison put out by the maintenance person, against my better judgement since it's never worked in the past, I have had 0 decrease in ant activity. In fact it's gotten so bad that I can't turn on the light above my desk anymore, because that just draws them out and then they fall on my desk (and computer, and in my food, and on my head).
















I took the above three pictures after I'd had the light on for 10 minutes. See all those little black dots all over the light and cieling in the above right picture? Ants, each and every one of them. I've got the creepy crawlies on my head just thinking about them.

The giant crack in the light cover that you can see has been there since last winter, when Jesse took it down to put (ineffectual) bait in it, and the plastic broke. He broke the one in the kitchen completely, I've had a bare bulb in there ever since. I took the cover down a couple of weeks ago to try and super glue it back together. It worked...somewhat. I had to hold the split together with masking tape, and some of the masking tape got super glued to the cover. The ants are still coming through.

In less icky, more yarny news, Thanksgiving Santa (aka Sidnee) visited knit night the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and brought yarny giveaways. I picked up 7 skeins of recycled sari silk.


No clue what I'm going to do with this, but I compulsively accept free yarn. Plus, it's very lovely, so many yummy colors.

The hand warmers that I spoke of in a previous post had to be restarted. These are the ones knit out of Jasmine yarn for a friend of mine. The first one was just a bit too snug on her, so I started over on size 4 US (3.5mm) needles. I got the first one re-knit in short order, but the second one got put on hold until I'd finished another two pairs for her that are meant as Christmas gifts to her nieces.


This is the first (now completed) jasmine wrist warmer. I knit this one from the top down, so that I could monitor the length more closely and hopefully have enough yarn for both (it's going to be close, very close).









I got a lot of knitting done on the gift hand warmers over the Thanksgiving holiday, in addition to lots of work on my term papers. I celebrated Thursday night with macaroni and cheese, which might not sound like much, but this is my great-grandmother's recipe for the dish and it's delicious. I snapped this picture right after taking it out of the oven. I at the last of it for dinner last night. I miss it already.



The first set of gift mitts I knit were in a mystery fiber variegated dark pink fingering weight yarn, on size 2.5 US (3 mm) needles. I loved working with this yarn. I know it's got silk in it. I've got a matching headband to knit up, and I'm saving it for last.





















I finished these on Friday, and started the next pair (blue variegated wool, fingering, same needles) on Friday. I just finished them up today on the bus to the library, and have cast on for the matching headband in this color. I don't have any pictures of these, but I'll try to remember to get some (I gave the finished pink ones to their gifter before I could snap a finished shot. I'm prone to doing that).

Now I'm gearing up for a weekend of relaxation, fun, and possibly some mild cleaning of my home (like dishes and putting away school papers, nothing drastic). I've got DVDs from the library, and a paper back sci-fi for bed time reading. I'm hoping to finish up the headbands in short order so I can get back to working on my Hot Pink and Vintage cardigan, and I'm going to start a pair of Prarie Boots by cocoknits for myself. I've got the pattern printed and the yarn all lined up, and I'm so very tired of having ice cubes for feet at home.

That's all I've got for now. I'll try to stay on top of posting regularly during winter break.