My Haul

Now to some of my presents. Although I try desperately hard not to be, I am the teensiest bit afflicted with the common coffee addiction suffered (or indulged in?) by many. I don’t drink pop (soda or carbonated caffeine beverages), and I never drank coffee until grad school when I worked part-time at the college library and had to wake up early to get to said job. My classes, on the other hand, didn’t start till 6:00 p.m., so I *needed* the juice to get me through lectures that lasted till 10:00 p.m. and to the stacks by 8:00 a.m.

The student building had a Coffee Beanery, and before each class I could be found standing in line ~ 18 oz. refillable mug in hand ~ waiting desperately for the much sought after café caramel drink that I could add copious amounts of rough, brown cane sugar to. For the most part I have kicked the habit, yet I was pretty bummed out when the Coffee Beanery about two miles away closed on December 8th.

My youngest sister, ever the enabler, gave us this little lovely:

The very groovy Bodum Chambord French Press Coffee Maker ~ 12 cup (or according to the marketing info 12 cup sensible folks/6 cup U.S. ~ is that saying something about us and our *supersize me* needs?!?!). For those of you who haven’t tried one, it makes a mean cup of joe. Hubby of course, always goes that extra two miles with anything kitchen involved. He heats up our handmade ceramic coffee mugs with boiling-hot water while the coffee is brewing. And let me tell you, the whole house will smell DIVINE while this pot brews! His preferred cream is whole whipping cream, not the half-and-half, or heaven forbid, skim milk used in *bucks’ lattes. Add enough sugar, and viola, enough of a stimulant to keep even the most seasoned caffeine freaks going.

The very disturbing thing that I just realized is that while this press has a 12 cup capacity, each time M. has used the press to make coffee he has filled it to capacity, and once we fill two of the coffee mugs just to the brim, there is barely a half of an inch of coffee left on the bottom of the press: just enough, really, to cover the screen/press. Whoa, Nellie! That means our mugs must be able to hold way more than two cups of coffee each. No wonder I'm edgy jittery.

The coffee is the house-blend of Espresso Royale from a Café of the same name in Ann Arbor. Perhaps the fact that I am drinking a giant mug of espresso is the reason I am awake at all hours of the night. Unless, of course, this is just a marketing ploy, and the name is espresso but the coffee is just regular coffee. Who knows? But if I my needles start shaking, and my stitches start dropping, I'll know what I have to quit doing.

One of my majors in college was film theory. I was raised on a healthy diet of movies, especially the heroic westerns and WWII films that were made both during and after the war in an effort to boost enlistment and national support of the war. I understand the whole propaganda issue of many of the WWII era films and the industrial military machine (those Halliburton weasels); nonetheless, there is something quite extraordinary about the films of the 40s and 50s, and I don’t lack the American fascination with gangsters, so the Depression-era films are equally exquisite.

I love film noir, westerns (yes, even and especially John Wayne films, regardless of his politics), and gangster movies. My all time favorite film is Casablanca; the Epstein brothers’ script (Julius and Philip) is the tightest and fastest moving I’ve ever heard, and the biting social commentary that might be too subtle for the ill-educated younger generations to grasp is superb. Plus, the cast of characters/actors is nothing to shake a stick at. The scene when Ilsa and Rick meet again in the café is one of the best on the silver screen. These troubled anti-heroes are very appealing, and the whole genre of men with guns in terms of most war films, noir, and westerns is fascinating to me.

Of course Casablanca does not fall into the noir category, but the film does hint at the darkness and evil that abounded in Europe during the late 30s and 40s, and there is a definite desperation in the lives of most of the characters, and although most contemporary U.S. lives don’t have anything near the desperation of the issues that existed during the 30s and 40s, this desperation does resonate in some current film, literature, and TV.

Aaron Sorkin, David Milch, David E. Kelley, and the Coen brothers are my favorite contemporary screenwriters. David Mamet also falls into that category, but lately not so much. I love the conflicting moral dilemmas that Sorkin, Milch, and Kelley can write so fluidly about. And no one can match the Coens for darkness and absurdity.

Knowing my love for extremely well-written drama and my fascination with men with guns (or as hubby calls it, mayhem), hubby gifted me these babies as they were released over the past few years for Christmas (I think each season came out a different Christmas, so they were nice additions for three years in a row):

I refuse to succumb to the ever-growing ripoff of cable TV, so we don’t have HBO. Nonetheless, our DVD collection includes some of the HBO offerings: the available Larry Sanders Show, all the available Curb, and all the positively superb Deadwood (hot men with guns). In keeping with this tradition, he gifted me these (if you can believe it!!!):

Yessireee, Bob, that’s ALL of the Sopranos ~ every single last one of them!!!!! Since I have time off between semesters, and was so burned out after last semester, I have been committing my coffee-infused nights to getting through as many of these as possible ~ marathon Sopranos if you will. After much diligent watching, so far I have gotten through Seasons 1 & 2 but none of the bonus material ~ only five more to go.

He also gave me these beauties:

The longish purple markers are freshwater pearls as are the very cool, but somewhat weighty, ice-blue globes with red accents; the loose markers are pressed amber beads.

Here is a bit more of a close up of the icy-globes (click on the image for magnification):

Well, maybe not closer, but at least showcased. They all came from Zero Markers: Jewelry for Your Knitting at etsy.com, and I highly recommend this vendor! These were ordered very close to Christmas and resized to my sock needle needs, yet got all the way from California to Michigan (via regular post, no less) in the blink of an eye. Alright, about three days. Still, not bad for the week before Christmas when I remembered that I had looked at these on Wendy’s recommendation in January 2007.

What is even better is that Edwin Almodovar (Zero Markers artist) sent me the two markers on the little black cards for FREE!! Gratis. Kein geld. What a sweety. Plus, the extra markers were enclosed in this very cute handmade envelope, from paper that looks very reminiscent of Speed Racer wrapping paper :-)

I am one happy knitter. THANKS sis and hubby!!!!

Pomatomus

Good GRIEF!!!! I spent 90% of the day switching over to New Blogger. EVERY single link had to be manually entered. What a waste of time. My neck and eyes are killing me!!

I hope this newer, streamlined look was worth it, especially since I could have been knitting.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have been hemming and hawing about using this Fleece Artist yarn for the famed Pomatomus socks because I am going to make them a bit larger than the pattern size, and I am not sure I have enough yarn.

I took this slip of yarn with me to the store, hoping that I could find something that would work for heels and toes:

I thought the ShiBui on the right would do the trick, and obviously I couldn't resist the skein on the left due to the lovely color palette:

By the little slip protruding out of the hank, it seems as though you can barely notice a difference in color scheme, which should bode well for my project, don't you think?

Yet when I put the skein of the ShiBui next to the Fleece Artist, the look seems amiss:

Well, I started the Pomatomus anyway. Here’s hoping they will work out:

Just think of how much I could have gotten done had I spent the day knitting instead of reformatting. Grrrr!!!

Joyeux Noel ~ Mele Kalikimaka

A few days after all that snow we had a spell of warmish weather, around 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Two or three days later we had rain, and most of the significant snow was gone. But it was back again yesterday, just in time for Christmas Eve:

Don't adjust your screen/monitor ~ this was a nighttime photo.

Yesterday, my dear husband made his traditional Christmas caramels:

I, on the other hand, made my famous chocolate chip cookies:

But they are miniature in size the way he likes them:

Finished product:

I don't recommend making these bite-sized cookies because they seem to go much faster than larger ones due to their nibblet size.

We opened our presents earlier (about 10 days ago) because I don’t have the willpower to wait, so M. was quite surprised (I think) when he got to unwrap these two little items today:


Although he never mentioned this, I absolutely knew he would totally love this new iPod ~ the iPod Touch:

Under instructions from the Best Buy guys, I also got the charger:

Once he gets the thing charged, I will try to take a shot of the pod if I can get my hands on it for a minute. Little did I know, you can surf the web and read email, so I doubt he’ll ever let it out of his hands from this point forward. And yes, I made him that sweater. :-)

Earlier in the year I bought this Fleece Artist sock yarn and finally decided what I could use it for, so it seems a good time to wind it up and get it ready for some much needed knitting time:


It's a bluish teal/turquoise, and it is perfect for a bluish/teal sock named after a bluish/teal fish (you know the one); I don’t think I have enough of it for a pair of socks because I only have one skein, and the lace pattern might take up some yardage, but I'll keep my fingers crossed because I have been dying to make that pattern:

Happy Holidays to all who celebrate them this time of year.

Peace on Earth and goodwill toward all ~ Joyeux Noel, Merry Christmas, and Mele Kalikimaka!!

Wireless Hats

Hubby took on a very ambitious project in an effort to simplify our *wireless* lifestyle. Let’s be honest, although the laptop and one of his Christmas gifts are wireless, I am basically wired to my pc as he is to his, not to mention the networked printers, modems, and routers. Those of you unlucky enough NOT to have the MAC life, but the pc life, are all too familiar with the raw tonnage of wires that run rampant behind desks or tables that bear the weight of your computer stuff. Ours is no exception.

I can’t stretch my legs out under my desk because they inevitably get tangled up in the tangle of wires draping down the back of my desk like so much melted frosting. In an effort to tame these wires, hubby has installed a Julia Childesque pot hanger cum modem hanger behind the table separating our two workspaces. Here is the finished effect:

Isn't he smart and handy?!?!?!?

On to wireless hats:
In keeping with my stashbusting pledge of earlier this year, or late last year, I am trying to put good yarn to good use. Admittedly, it was fairly easy not to buy yarn while I was also not knitting, blogging or reading about knitting, so I will confess that my yarn diet of the past six months was relatively painless. Nonetheless, here is a project completed solely from stash yarn.

I have what might be called a hat fetish. I don’t think anyone living in the Midwest can have enough winter hats, socks or gloves/mittens. Therefore, hubby will be gifted this fair isle cap that should help keep his head and ears warm while shoveling snow or taking winter walks (inside of said cap):

And outside:

Close-up:

Project Details:
Yarn: Cleckheaton Country 8 ply (100% Wool, Machine Washable, approx. 105 yards/96 metres per 50 gram skein), guessing slightly less than two full skeins of various left over colors
Needles: Brittany DPNs, size 5 (cast on with size 8)
Pattern: Basic cap w/rolled brim, purl crown, icord top (use any fair isle pattern that will work with the number of stitches cast-on, checkerboard pattern in between purl rolls of brim)
Start: September 16
Finito: December 19

I’ll cut the ends to about six inches or so and let them felt of their own accord, and for fair isle hats I like to braid the ends, so even the hat isn’t completely wireless.

Although now it is difficult to find (from Australia), I really enjoy the Cleckheaton. When we lived on the other side of town, my LYS regularly stocked Cleckheaton, and I often used it for hats, socks, and kids' sweaters. I knit my first pair of socks with it, and my only complaint is that the yarn does pill pretty quickly once worn. But it is very soft, comes in a lovely palette of colors, and is surprisingly non-itchy to the touch, which makes it very nice for hats and socks and even better for kiddie wear.

A Very Grey Day ~ Snow Storm

This is what confronted me when I looked through the window yesterday morning (Sunday):

I guess the weather guys were finally right (yep, that's a hair under 20 degrees Fahrenheit):

While it is true we have had several dustings of snow since just before Halloween and even a few inches here and there that quickly melted within 24 hours, we haven’t had our usual Midwestern winter storm yet. HAH! Overnight we got 9 inches and some areas near the lakes got over one foot. This is my car ~ a tallish PT Cruiser, so you know the snow is a bit high:

My industrious, hard working hubby hasn't been as lucky as I am because he got the shoveling responsibility yesterday and will likely get it again tomorrow. Here is what dear hubby had been up to:

All told, we had over 10 inches within 24 hours, and by 6:00 p.m., 200 schools were closed. By the beginning of the early-late news (10:00 p.m.) 300 schools were closed, and by the end of the regular late news (11:00 p.m.) more than 500 schools were closed.

We certainly didn’t have it as bad as the more westerly part of the Midwest did (Oklahoma) with the ice storms last week, but trust me, this will do, especially since it hasn't really let up, even though it isn't coming down as hard as it was Saturday evening and night. People can't drive to save their lives during the first true accumulation of snow in any given season. For some reason they think it's full steam ahead and the only way to make it through drifts is to attack them head-on rather than try to navigate around them. And even though most roads will be either unplowed (for you Canadians and Brits: unploughed) for a day or two, and those that do get some plow action will need more, folks will drive the posted speed limit and try to take slick, icy roads at reckless speeds, causing horrible accidents or spinouts and annoying traffic jams.

The very WORST irony is that the wind has been picking up, causing significant sized drifting. Notice the grass ~ it is still visible, yet the snow on the driveway is three feet high in some places. Grrrr!!! If all that snow were on the lawn instead of the driveway like ALL my neighbors across the street, then no backbreaking shoveling would have to happen. Poor hubby certainly has his work cut out for him. Lucky for me he is such a good sport! But if he wasn't so stubborn and used the snowblower instead of his back, I would be happier!!

Saturday Sky Before Snow Storm

Aloha, Dear Readers!

Presenting my gloomy, grey Saturday Sky shot through the fogged-up window of the front door (yes, as I type this, I realize it is late enough to be Sunday evening):

After a lengthy hiatus, I am finally back to the world of blogging and knitting. Fall semester is over, and grades have been posted. Whew!!

Now it’s time to catch up on housework (dusting ~ UGH!!), knitting, and blogging. I haven’t blogged much since Google purchased blogger.com and made serious downsizing changes to accounts, so let’s see how this goes.

I remain somewhat annoyed with my digital camera. During the summer, I tried in vain to snap a picture of my wedding ring. The camera I use for blogging photos is a Canon Powershot A620. Although I like its smallish size and light weight, it drives me nuts in part because I haven’t been able to figure out even the basics on it (crap-a-rooni manual) and because the flash pretty much sucks big time ~ no throwing power whatsoever. One day I played around with the camera for about an hour, experimenting with settings, crappy user guide in hand. NADA. No matter what settings I use indoors, the finished image looks poorly lit, especially when I try to take pictures of large knit pieces like an adult's sweater or a scarf blocking.

In any event, as many of you well know, our knitting images often depend on not only the quality of light but the quantity or intensity of light. Although our house is VERY bright inside during the summer, even shots taken inside during the summer don't have the aesthetic appeal like those taken outdoors.

I had promised some readers to put a snap of my wedding ring on the blog, and every shot taken indoors was sadly inadequate. Once fall came, I purchased several lush hardy mums for late season garden color. The oranges were so lovely I thought they would make an equally lovely background for the ring, and because the day I took this was very bright, I thought I might as well try to get a shot of it.

If you look closely in the mums, you’ll see my Hawaiian Heritage wedding band sans the very narrow black enamel bands that surround it. (The ring was ordered from a fairly famous jewelery store on O'ahu ~ Royal Hawaiian Heritage Jewelers. The staff at RHHJ are wonderful to work with. Another excellent jewelery store on O'ahu is Kakesako Brothers ~ they can't be beat for their diamond selections. Click on the image for a closer look.) My shortened, or nickname, is on the ring ~ but translated into Hawaiian ~ Kaki:

I could have used my full first name on the ring, but it is eight letters long. Doing so would have eliminated most of the very beautiful carving features of the ring: the scrolling Plumeria that wind around the rest of the unlettered part of the ring. While this isn't the best picture, I figured those of us who have had nothing but grey overcast days for a while will appreciate a bit of bright, sunny orange.

As to the camera, when I am less impatient, I will have to hunker down with it and a notebook to take serious notes about what setting causes what type of image to appear. Maybe then I will make some headway with it.

Saturday Sky, Spring, and Eye Candy Friday

Here is a view of our lovely spring sky from Saturday, April 21, with a jet streaming past overhead:

The after trail breaking up:

The moon:

My hyacinths quickly sprouted in April when we had a couple of days of 80 degree temps but just as quickly died right before blooming when the temps plunged into the low 20s. GRRRRR!!!!!!!!

My tulips struggled, and although many of my neighbors had blooms on theirs last week, mine didn't begin to open until today. Their leaves are oddly crinkled. I was afraid I would never see signs of spring in my garden.

But my hens & chicks look quite lovely, eye-candy-like if you know what I mean:

Meet the Flintstones and Sock Madness ~ Part Cuatro

THANKS for the kind words of encouragement re: Sock Madness M*Cow Socks!!!!!!

Okay, I haven’t been blogging much lately. I haven’t been knitting much lately either. Work has been very demanding, more so than ever before, and other unfortunate events have also occurred.

Since I’m not ready to talk much about the unfortunate events, I might as well not talk about work either. Nonetheless, these are my excuses for not doing much blogging or knitting.

Here is what hubby got for his birthday from his bro’ in Chicago:

How cute are these?!?!?!?!?!

Two demitasse cup sets with his name on them:

They cracked me up!! I LOVE pottery of all kinds, and I have a fairly largish collection of fairly largish coffee mugs. Most of which are still in boxes because we have room for either books or pottery on the shelves, and hubby chose books. Well, we both did, actually.

So it pretty much cracked me up that his bro’ sent more pottery, which can be the bane of hubby’s existence, because I have pottery on every surface of the house. Yuk, yuk, ha ha!! I have more pottery than yarn if that is to be believed. And since I am admitting it, you should believe it.

Anyway, these cute little cups are from a place in Chicago that sells stuff salvaged from hotels and restaurants, and these babies had hubby’s name on them, so of course, bro’-in-law grabbed ‘em.

Alright, now that we had a chuckle about that, here is something un-chuckable: the complete and utter lack of progress on the MCow socks for Sock Madness.

Last week I had this:

Close-up:

I did NOT dig these holes in the right side of the heel:

So of course I frogged:

Then I reworked the heel and got to this point:

But let me tell you, these things are SO NOT going to fit me or ANYONE I know. Wah, wah, wah!!!!!

Look, this sock is nine inches in circumference around the ribbing, a bit wider, a small bit, around the leg, and the same small bit wider on the foot. The green thing you see sticking up out of the cuff is my Ban deodorant. Not exactly the largest circular vessel in my house. Certainly nothing compared to my tree-trunk-like legs. Okay, so it’s not gripping the Ban deodorant like a vise; there is some stretchability going on here. But not to a size 10.

Alright, so the toes on the mock foot aren't so Flintstone-like. My toes are. Flat stubs across the top so my foot looks almost like a rectangle. But hey. At least they give hubby some fodder for jokes, and a tune to play on the guitar.

I doubt my smallest framed niece can get this on her foot. My youngest niece is around 10 or 11 years old and has a size 8 foot. My smallest framed niece is 23 years old or so, and she also has a size 8 foot. I’m fairly confident she won’t grow any more, but I don’t think this will fit her. And although the 10 year old kid will grow a lot more, I don’t think it will fit her either even though she is way younger.

What to do, what to do? I KNEW I should have cast on more stitches at the get-go and went up a needle size. Grrrrrrr, grrrrrrr, grrrrrrr!!!!

I am going to end up frogging the whole damn thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which is why this sock will continue to be a WIP, sitting alone and forlorn on my dinning room table, on top of a mock foot instead of warmly covering my cold piggies until I can decide WHAT. TO. DO!!! :-(

This is just too bad because the pattern is so darn cute, and I do really dig these colors, and I think this yarn might be pretty sturdy and long wearing even if it's not the softest yarn I ever felt.

Sock Madness ~ Part Three

Here is the yarn I chose for the first pair of socks for Sock Madness:

It is Wildfoote fingering weight by Lamb’s Pride. This is the only fingering weight I could find that came in a solid color at any YS in the county where I live, and the shop had only two skeins of solid color (thank heavens they were purple) and only one skein of a decent contrast that would work with the solid.

I tell ya', if the shop had something like yellow or brown in a solid, I would have given up and not even bought the yarn for this pair. If this had been the case, I would have had to use some sage Rowan I have in my stash that I plan on using for Birch Leaves socks, and this would have saddened me immensely. Purple is my favorite color, so it was somewhat fortuitous that I found these solids!!!

The pattern calls for one skein each of solid and variegated. I picked up two skeins of purple (solid) in addition to the primary-color variegated, however, because I did not think 100 grams of fingering weight would produce socks large enough for an adult foot. (Yes, that is a purple there even though it looks like a raisin color.) The shop had lots of Fleece Artist variegated in lighter pastel colors that oddly enough looked pretty awful next to the purple.

I believe my calculations are correct because this sock, although knit according to the limited specs in the pattern (no gauge), certainly is too small for my foot. Yes, it will fit a woman with a size 7 foot, but I know of no such women in this area. Most everyone around here has at least a size 9 foot.

After finishing the ribbed cuff, I knew there was no way in h*ll this sock would fit me (I used that tried and true method of making a fist and trying to squeeze said fist into the cuff opening to no avail); hence I debated increasing the number of cast-on stitches to at least 62 or moving up to a larger size needle, say a U.S. 2, but we are supposed to knit the pattern as written, so moving up a needle size may not have solved my size problem while sticking with the fingering weight, and I was worried about holes or loose looking stitches if I simply moved up a needle size rather than increasing the number of cast-on stitches.

Plus, even though I have three skeins of yarn, the variegated figures into the mix fairly regularly, so I am not sure I would have enough yarn to finish two socks if I move up a needle size. There has been much debate over at Flickr regarding the number of stripes ~ some think the leg has four stripes, while others believe it to be five. The pattern was a bit vague in the directions in this area although some claim the directions are pretty clear. As with all instructions, interpretation is everything, and experience here counts an awful lot. I have to think, though, first time sock knitters, or inexperienced sock knitters probably had lots of problems and suffered through a lot of unnecessary frustration.

Here’s what I have so far:

Although the circumference of the cuff is nine inches, I doubt the heel and foot area will work with a larger size foot, say 10 or 11. I have it in mind to gift these to my niece of the Fir Cone Scarf because she is petite (5' 4" or so), and she also digs purple. But she wears a size 8 shoe. Will these fit do you imagine?

I realize I am probably out of this competition already due to the funeral and all the events surrounding it, especially since I cast on late Saturday evening (EST) and knit only the first two rounds of the cuff’s ribbing, while others spent most of their day knitting and finished the pair. On Sunday I committed a few hours to knitting and got as far as the fourth band of color repeat, leaving the fifth band for today, and this evening while watching Conan I began the short row heel.

The front is cute:

But I am not really digging the way the color jogs at the end slash beginning of each row. Nothing I’ve tried will eliminate this jog. Ordinarily I try to knit everything in the round if possible and will go to great lengths to convert patterns to rounds if at all possible, and I use color extensively, yet I’ve never run into this problem before where the jog is so glaringly evident. I don’t like it one bit. Take a look:

It looks like a sloppy-assed seam.

If I remember correctly from some of the comments on Flickr, others have run into this problem too. At first I thought it was the yarn I picked; then I thought it was the needle size. Maybe it is because I am carrying the yarn rather than trying to deal with weaving in a gazillion ends with the frequent shifts in color. I'd hate to cut the ends and go for the weave job on the next sock only to end up with the same problem.

If I am going to have to gift these because I will never get my Sasquatch feet into them I want them to look a bit nicer. Plus, from the photos I've seen so far in the Flickr group, the short row heel looks very loose and pointy as though there is too much fabric in the heel, and most of the socks have significant holes in the heel area at the short row line (to be more exact, the dart line). This may be due to speed knitting, or it may be due to the pattern, or it may be due to skill with short rows ~ hard to know. We'll see what I come up with tomorrow or the next day.

Grrrrrrrr.