Dazed and bemused

I’m turning 25 on Tuesday and have no idea how to take this fact. The past two months have been a blur, since I spent four weekends in a row down with the flu (or various similar viri). Gah, it just doesn’t feel like it should be December in two days. Where the heck did November go?

I do have some snippets of the month to recall. I vaguely remember my sister sending me two photos on November 12th, mostly because it was during a weekly Sip ‘n’ Stitch and I ended up passing my crackberry around for everyone to see my sister’s feet and a pair of handknit socks on Miyajima, also known as the “Shrine Island”:

I’m actually jealous of the socks. They get to travel to better places that I do. Silly, I know.  Though I have to say that I absolutely love my sister for taking photos of her feet in public.

On that same night (busy Thursday, eh?), we experienced the biggest sock yarn tangle ever in the store. Alas, it was my yarn.

It took four knitters three hours to detangle the mess and actually get it into some semblance of a ball. I still haven’t knit anything with said yarn, since I’m almost afraid of it. What will it become? Will it be good or bad?  What pair of socks could ultimately be worth that much effort?

And now, of course, I have an unnatural wariness of Madelinetosh Sock because of this trauma.

Then, on the 23rd, I went to Deschutes Brewery with Opus and Marjorie. Great porter there, it must be said. But, then, I like beer I can chew.

Opus is holding the 7-8″ KnitPod prototype out here:

Which is working awesomely, by the way. I love it. The wip being contained turned into this mitt:

My new Nemo Mitts, named thusly because I suck at naming things. I’m actually looking for test knitters for the pattern, if anyone’s interested.  Just email me at fyberduck(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll send you a rough copy.

But that’s about everything I have.  There was a finished sweater in there somewhere, but I don’t have a photo or a date.  Bad blogger, I know.  I think I finished it while on a Robitussin/ DayQuil cocktail, so it’s not entirely my fault that that’s all a fog.

I’ll try and be better next month.

Honest.

uh… free pattern, anyone?

Trying to distract you from the fact that I have been laying flat on my face for the past two weeks. Lame, I know. Imagine how boring it’s been for me.   I have the flu again.  Or maybe it never went away and the last fortnight has simply been an extended infection.  Who knows?

Anyway.  I have been managing to haul my sorry tuckus into work (most of the time) and one of my most recent Robitussin-inspired moments involved publishing another free Gratis Knits (yes, that was redundant) pattern.  You can get it here.

Also, somewhere in there (it’s all a little fuzzy right now), I finished T’s children’s bolero:

Which I really want to see modeled on T.  But I’ve been waiting to, ah, sanitize it since I don’t want handknits to be associated with the creepy crud.  Just imagine the trauma.

Oh, well.  Things have been progressing here… slowly.  Mum’s cashmere lace scarf has a good 18″ on it, I finished a sock last night (my own pattern), and I’m working on a pattern booklet for ShibuiKnits.  But that’s hush, hush.  I’m also working on a new pattern series for the blog – both free and, well, not – that I hope to have started putting up by the New Year.  I really need to find a pattern editor…  maybe I could find someone who would work for yarn?

Hmm.  It looks like I have a lot set out for me.  And that doesn’t even include the laundry – which I am falling behind on.  And on that note, I should go empty the dryer.  I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

I liked September better.

October, so far, has really sucked a lot.* I’m not trying to whine, just explain why I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like (I have tons of photos, honest).

Let’s see, the week before last I had a 5-day migraine (oh, yes, five whole days of head-splitting pain and flashing auras).

Then the day before yesterday I was informed by Kristin that she and her husband had been diagnosed with having had the H1N1 flu virus last week.

On Monday I was developing a sore throat.  Yesterday, the sore throat continued, I had developed a lovely headache, I ached all over (especially my joints), and I ended up taking a 6-hour nap (noon to 6 pm) because I was so tired.  I did try and go to work yesterday morning, but ended up feeling so crappy I left (ha, I was ordered out by the Moms In Residence) and came home and crashed.

Today continues with the same symptoms – the sore throat is better (thank you, OJ), the headache is the same, the body aches are 100% worse, and the fatigue is about the same.  In fact, I think I will go and take another nap after I post this.

Yeah.  September was much better.

*It could be worse, though, and I’m the first to admit it.  I don’t have the intestinal problems (or fever!) many flu sufferers have right now.  I’m not sure it is H1N1 (and don’t really care), but I’m not going to go to my doctor (and infect more people) to find out.  Heck, this isn’t even half as bad as Scarlet Fever was.  I just want to get well.  Soon, please.

Quick post, battery dying.

And I’m just too lazy to go upstairs and get the power cord right now.

Today was the Portland Race For The Cure. As always it started at what felt like the break of dawn (ick, 5 hours of sleep). Opus and I met at Peet’s, grabbed some caffeine to go (thank the heavens for cambric tea) and walked briskly over to the Waterfront to meet out team. Luckily for us (though not according to them), we missed the team photoshoot. Darn.

Then we lined up at the starting line for the 1K walk (I might have registered us for the 5K, but I didn’t get a choice – it being an OHSU team and all…), and I made Opus hold up her traveling sock:

I had mine out to photograph before I realised that I couldn’t take a photo of it – it’s Top Secret. Oy. In the meantime, I contented myself with taking random pictures. Specifically of a participant’s back, just so I could prove that over 51,000 people were congregating in downtown Portland:

(the OHSU team was in the upper 12,000 range)

Opus was floored to discover (as we were waiting) that the Portland Race For The Cure is the 3rd largest in the world (and the largest on the West Coast). I wasn’t too surprised, because I remembered hearing something similar last year, but still… 51,000+ people is a lot of people.

Anyway. I, of course, made Opus hold up her socks for the Finish Line…

I mean, how could I not? I’m sure she thought I was crazy, but that’s par for the course. After escaping the throng (that many thousands of people definitely counts as a throng!), we headed into NoPo to visit a knitting store we’d never been to, Close Knit.

(there is a traveling sock there, I swear)

Which, I have to say, I loved. It really looked and felt like the knitting store I’d set up, if I ever went mad and decided to do that to myself (I work at a knitting store, I know how much work it is!). It was really quirky and quaint and I loved the old recycled, well, everything. Very fun.

Okay, (sigh), my laptop battery just died and I had to rummage around and find a power cord.  One would think this means I have time to blog more in depth, but the lasagne just came out of the oven, I’m hungry, and this looks good enough.  Tomorrow night is “No Mean Feet!”, if you live in PDX, I’ll hope to see you there!

The last two days… I think

Beginning to lose track of what happened when.  Must be the sleep deprivation.  (joking)

Let’s see.   The day before yesterday, Mum and I went into the Gorge, intent on finding lovely fruit, local yarn*, and panoramic vistas**.  Oh, and local mobile art.  Mum’s very big into that.  Some highlights:

Cool curly antique light fixture at the DFG Vanhorn factory.

“Impaired Side” next to obsolete tracks.

Cuddly alpacas. Or, rather, hungry alpacas that put up with being petted in return for food.

Then, yesterday, I met with Sandy B for breakfast and she very happily showed off her (unblocked) Girasole:

Made with ShibuiKnits Sock in “Finch”, it’s intended to be a baby blanket for an soon-to-be-born baby. Good job, Sandy! It’s going to be just gorgeous when it’s blocked.

Then, after several loads of laundry and some cleaning, I met up with the ladies of The Yarnovers (the Knit Purl lace group), whereupon I rather forced Opus to show off her beautiful Halloween KAL shawl (don’t ask):

(okay, my photography skills suck)

(and a [very blurry] close-up)

I also got Leslie to help Opus hold it up, but none of those photos came out at all. The point’n'click and I are having some issues. Oh, well.

Anyway, that’s the past two days – severely condensed, to be sure.  I’ve got to go now and do some ironing (yeah, at 11:30pm), since I don’t really have any shirts for tomorrow…  toodles!

*Okay, that was me
**Yeah, fell short.  Sorry ’bout that.  It was a quite pretty lavender farm, though.