Am an idiot.
Who can’t do basic math, apparently.
Shall I rip now, or later?
The eternal question.
Category: frogging
my own stupid fault
One: bad karma. Two: ignored the pattern reviews. Three: I’m just that stupid in general.
One: I shouldn’t be knitting anything other than Project #3 right now, and I know it. It’s just… the yarn was there and looking pretty and I still had more than half the skein left after knitter a pair of mitts (pic later).
Two: plenty of people have kvetched online that Calorimetry is too large. I’ve seen it a million times. Yet I CO as the pattern dictated. Sono stupida.
Three: even though it’s huge and I’ll have to frog it, who CO something without checking their yardage first?
I totally got what I deserve, which is why I’m ripping this:
As soon as I can bear to, anyway. I think I’ll work on Project #3 for awhile. I made a bunch of progress on the sleeve this afternoon and should work on the body tonight. Maybe I’ll finish all those bloody cables in the next 24 hours. Unlikely, but entirely possible. Especially since Mum got a studio and won’t be around to distract me…
Okay, that still leaves two relatives and a dog, but Emm’s sworn he’s locking himself in his room to study and Dad… well, I’ll think of something.
avoidance
Well, today I did this:
Making this:
And then wound it…
After that I looked at the knee-high spock pattern for about amount of the time it takes for my brain to shut down (appx. 1.5 mins) and decided that maybe pattern writing wasn’t the best plan for today. Causing me to work on several different projects all day. Including a new sock pattern for ShiBui.
My head hurts. I got to wake up bright and early to meet with the landlord and deal with trimming our hedges. Then something else happened and I stopped caring around noon. Which is why the house is a mess and only half the laundry is folded.
Whoo.
If I leave out a bowl of milk tonight will the brownies come and fix my house?
I am an idiot.
No. Really. I am.
I’m so stupid right now I need to go and knit a garter-stitch scarf or something.
The mistake I made with the knee-high spock pattern is so painfully embarrassing, and just plain painful, I can’t even look at it right now. I’m going to have to rip the entire thing.
Ugh.
Do I even have any no-thinking-required projects on the needles now? I don’t trust myself enough to CO a project.
expecto soleam
True to my word, I BO the last stitch on Bean’s second bootie right as the previews started before HPatOP. I also only had 12″ of yarn left. Is that kizmit or what?
The movie was fantastic. It is widely known that I strongly disapprove of the 1st and 3rd movies, for many reasons. But I liked this latest director’s take on the HP universe – the Death Eaters were much cooler this time (in an evil sort of way), as was the Order (loved Tonks and Shacklebolt). The interpretation of the relationships of the 3 was closer to the way I read the books – neither saccharine nor sexual. I also approved of the actress who played Luna (great job) and the twins were as fun as ever. The special effects were even more impressive than the last movie. The final 30 mins are perfectly described as an apocalypse.
Go and see it. You’ll definitely get your money’s worth, and it’ll be so much more entrancing on a large screen.
Moving on. Booties done meant I could spin for the Tour when I got home:
I love my charkha, but am even more excited to announce that Sheila at Journey Wheel emailed me today to let me know that my wheel would start it’s journey to me tomorrow. Once I calm down enough, I’ll send her a reply that goes beyond “SQUEE”.
After that I got down to some knitting, and am very annoyed to report that I’m going to have to frog these two socks-IP:
Stretched, they’ll fit a 7″ foot. As my foot is 8″ around… *sigh*. I think the sock yarn is punishing me for quitting on Titania’s Revenge. I may just have to re-CO. Later. Much, much later. For now, I’ll frog, rewind the ball, and CO a different pair of socks with different yarn.
Aaand, to cheer myself up I’ll check the SKA on ravelry – last count was at 240 members.
I think, therefore I blog?
It certainly ain’t the other way ’round, I’m sure we can all agree.
Stephieface did me the great honor of nominating/ tagging me for a Thinking Blogger Award. She also saved me from having to take a picture of something for tonight’s post, because there’s a button and everything involved:
They seem to be circling around the knitting blogsphere, which is fantastic if only because we’re such a communicative and appreciative group. And it’s also a great chance for us to find new blogs that inspire others. So, to keep this going, I need to nominate 5 blogs that get me thinking. There are so many, too many, but my 5 (which haven’t been mentioned that I know of) are:
- Spincerely Yours. I love Tamara’s writing style. I also love the fact that she refers to her girls as her ‘agents’. Lately, she’s gotten me thinking more and more about the Gardasil controversy and it’s possible effects on our children and society. She also knits and spins beautiful things.
- Penguin Girl. I love Penny. She keeps me feeling Jewish and actually gets me thinking about every week’s Torah parshah (portion). She’s a prolific reader, adventurous knitter, and always gives reviews of everything she tries – encouraging and tempting us all to try new books, tools, and knitting patterns.
- Strings & Yarn. Jodie impresses the hell out of me. I admit it. She knits beautifully, is very accomplished in general, and thought up/ organized the Charity Blanket Swap.
- Crimson Mittens. Crimson’s blog was probably the first blog I started reading outside my circle of friends. We’re both members of that very small group, knitting Classicists. While she doesn’t update as much as she used to (;_;), I still find her witty and thought-provoking. She also has a terrible habit of dragging me into swaps.
- The Panopticon. I’ve been reading Franklin’s blog for nearly as long as Crimson’s (it’s her fault), and am constantly provoked, worried, inspired, or amused by what he writes. I doubt he’ll notice this, but it had to be included since I look forward to his posts more than I do the Harlot’s.
So, wow. We should do this more often, y’all.
I was interested in the different purposes of all y’all’s stashes. Everyone had a really special reason for stashing, it seemed to me, that wasn’t even remotely related to greed. A comforting thought in this age of conspicuous consumption, eh? It also gives us the moral high ground in arguments over storage space.
Today I got the last of my dental ‘work’ done for the PC medical eval. Whether or not I’ll need dental surgery is still uncertain (cross your fingers for me, please!), but at least I won’t need to get my teeth looked at by a dentist for a loooong while (2 – 4 years from Sept 1, 2007 to be exact).
I tried to call my recruiter after, when the feeling in my face returned, but N was out. I need to catch him before agreeing to any invasive procedures, as it turns out that I DON’T have dental insurance right now (joy). I’m getting really, really sick of the Seattle Peace Corps’ answering service, and nearly have the 1-800 # memorized (extensions, options, and all).
Oy.
In the end, not much was achieved today (is it already 2 am?) as dinner took over 2 hours to make, I had to rip my cotlin tank out to the neckline again, and tons of errands had to be run about town. Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually get something done.
Not counting on it. But, it’d be nice. Oh, and ha, I checked the number of posts I need to catch up with on Bloglines (never look at the #, I swear I thought I was making progress) – 326 as of right now. People need to stop posting so frequently, really.
serendipity
Word History: We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that “this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word.” Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of “a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of….”
One of the stores that was so disastrous to my Stitches budget was Purlescence. They carry luxurious hand-dyed fibers for spinning (Chasing Rainbows and Blue Moon, to name a couple) and a vast array of hard-to-find knitting yarns (hard for me, anyway). As I was playing on Craftster this afternoon, I found out that the new knitty is up. I quickly sought it out and narrowed my interest to a single pattern, Queen of Cups. As I read through it, I discovered that it called for a cast on of 64 stitches (lo, the same number of stitches on my paisley socks that were causing me to pull my hair out). I decided that I’d rather knit these socks than the ones frustrating me, so I printed out the pattern and vowwed to rip out and start anew. Here’s my progress as of 1/2 an hour ago:
But, anyway, returning to the title of this post. As I printed out the pattern, I scanned down to the author’s bio. I laughed when I saw that the creator was none other than the owner of Purlescence – the same woman who had wound the yarn for Mum’s hat and wrist-warmers 4 days ago.
How cool is that?
swap joy, mistakes, and the true face of horror
I promise I’ll bring back the quotes tomorrow night. I’m kinda having trouble remembering any right now.
Anyway. I found out this morning that varandra had made it to the center of the Magic Yarn Ball I made her! Here’s everything I sent (well, mostly, the yummies have mostly been eaten), and the scarf she made with the yarn I sent her:
Yummy. I want to make myself a scarf like that now (it took me 2 hours of combing through lace patterns to find one I liked, I admit). Of course, new projects are off-limits right now until I finish some WIPs. Or fix some of the mistakes in said WIPs. Take this for instance:
Look really, really closely at the reversible brioche scarf. See how the right side slants inward a bit? Yeah. I dropped two, not one, stitches several inches back. Thus preserving the brioche pattern, so I wouldn’t notice. Even my mistakes are clever, eh?
See, it always amuses the heck outta me when my knitting students look incredulous when I tell them that everyone drops stitches unintentionally, including me. They always act like I’m having them on.
Well, here is finally proof that advanced knitters can make beginner mistakes. And I have the photographic evidence to support it.
And, just because (because what, I have no idea) here’s a final terrifying photo for you (you are forewarned!). Mum and I were cleaning out the fridge. Somehow an enamel pot had been hidden way in the back, behind all the milk and eggs and jam and stuff. This is what greeted us when we took of the lid:
Talk about a science fair project gone wrong. Eugh, just looking at it I’m having scent flashbacks. Mum concluded it had been in the fridge since Thanksgiving. I just shuddered.
withdrawal
Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary
Main Entry: with·draw·al
Function: noun
a : the discontinuance of administration or use of a drug
b : the syndrome of often painful physical and psychological symptoms that follows discontinuance of an addicting substance (a heroin addict going through withdrawal)
I made the idiotic decision two days ago to go off the Celexa cold turkey. Yesterday I felt awful. Today was worse. Mum finally diagnosed me as having symptoms of withdrawal (I actually had cold sweats, y’all). Great. Apparently, Celexa (aka citalopram) affects the body’s serotonin levels rather acutely. So, my stopping intake completely threw my body off-stride and was a very very bad idea. Mum commanded me to taper off, instead.
Which is something the doctor we talked to yesterday said nothing about (he gave me some samples of Strattera to hold me over until my regular doctor returns from vacation and we can apply for the Lilly program). I was simply informed to stop taking the Celexa and start in on the Strattera and report back in a week.
Mum wanted to publicly flog the doctor in question, and scolded me for some time for not asking her.
Oy. This all happened during The Moving of Mum. I hate packing, I hate snippy people, and all other things that come with a large move. I also didn’t have the energy to argue, feeling like I do. The boys actually got on my case for being “lazy”, until they noticed that I wasn’t looking too good. (These two aren’t the most observant creatures on the face of the planet)
So, finally, the boys and Mum left to move her into her apartment (I’ll explain some other time why I didn’t go) and I went to lie in a dark room for several hours. I am feeling better now, hence the blog post.
I even made a pretty picture (okay, overstatement there) using Mr. Picassohead:
I don’t have any pictures of my knitting or spinning. I’m too embarrassed to post pix right now. The reversible brioche scarf is gonna have to be ripped (oy) since I actually dropped two stitches 6″ back and only just noticed it. Gee, I’m observant, aren’t I? Must be rubbing off from the boys.
I have one sleeve onto the wraplan (yay!) and the socks are past the heels. The socks sound fun right now. As does food (first time today). Loodles. And, thank you everyone for your support.
Sara Morris Design 