Alarming non-knitting content ahead. Not even any cats. You have been warned.
If you watched the Tour de France, you saw this already… The Kinetic commercial of mountain bicycling champion and Tour de France commentor Bob Roll cycling naked has got to be one of the most alarming and yet strangely fascinating commercials of all time. It’s a spoof on Annie Leibovitz’s photo of Lance Armstrong cycling nude.
It’s quite possible that I need to get out more.
I’ve read a lot of knitting resolutions over the past few days, which got me thinking about what my knitting resolutions might be. Pumpkinmama’s list finally inspired me to stop thinking and start listing.
Top 5 for 2005
1. New technique
Tragically, I’m pretty sure I didn’t learn any new techniques in 2005. For 2006, I’d like to finally grasp knitting in ends (the video link is partway down the page) and learn Norwegian purling.
2. Favorite finished objects
The perfect purple Anne socks I knitted for Jeanne’s birthday
and the amazingly irregularly shaped felted tote bag I knitted for my sister-in-law’s birthday.
3. Favorite knitalong
I didn’t participate in a single knitalong in 2005. For 2006, I am part of Stashalong (January 1 – March 31).
4. Favorite shop
Actually, I don’t have a favorite shop at the moment. I’m fond of Elann.com and WEBS, but try to avoid them. See #1 in the next list for why.
5. Favorite tools
My ReadUpon
My gadget bag
My circular needle case
Resolutions for 2006
1. Knit from stash.
Hence participating in Stashalong. I have a ridiculous amount of stash. I could knit entirely from stash for several years.
2. Find a new knitting group that meets weekly.
2005 saw the implosion of our weekly knitting group and I’ve missed that camaraderie. I have a blast knitting with Jeanne every other week, but have discovered that I need a weekly knitting group to stay grounded.
3. Go to at least one knitting retreat.
2005 was the first year since I started knitting that I haven’t gone to several knitting retreats and that was another thing I really missed. Anyone have suggestions?! I’m particularly interested in events in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest (especially Sante Fe or Taos), or something on a train. I should also return to the Camp Miller Knitting Retreat, which was the first retreat I ever went to and which led to me meeting most of the knitting friends I now have.
4. Knit more.
In 2005, I completed the fewest knitting projects since I started knitting – 17. Of course, 17 is my lucky number, so maybe it was ok. 🙂
5. Start knitting for the community again. It’s the right thing to do.
ArtsyMama just tagged me and since the tag fits the list o’ five thing I have going here… Here’s my list of five weird things about myself:
1. I am phobic about garbage disposals, power lawnmowers, and power saws – basically anything with spinning sharp blades that could cut off fingers.
2. I have celiac disease and follow a gluten-free diet. I’m also lactose intolerant, but hey, at least I can take pills and still eat small amounts of dairy.
3. I’ve been divorced since 1991. Being divorced isn’t particularly weird, but people are always surprised to find this out.
4. I’ve done the internet dating thing off and on since 1999 – more off than on. During the memorable but emotionally exhausting summer of 1999, I went on about 25 coffee dates in a six week period.
5. Charles de Lint is my favorite author of all time. I think the weird thing here is that so few people seem to know about de Lint. Or maybe the weird thing is that I want to be a Crow Girl. 🙂 I recommend starting with Someplace To Be Flying if you’re interested in finding out more about de Lint. That link takes you to an excerpt from the beginning of the book, so you can check it out risk free.
I tag Pink Rocket, Mama_Tulip, Jeanne, Ana, Eileen, Theresa, Carrie K, Hickmama, Kellie N, and “me” from Bermuda. (Yeah, so that’s more than five. What’s your point??!)
The “rules” are to list five weird things about yourself, then tag five other people. The tag includes telling them about said tag in their comments.
If I missed tagging you and you really want to share some weirdness about yourself with the world, feel free! Drop me a note in comments and I’ll add you to the list above.
Welcome to 2006. May this year be better than the last.
This was the scene on my street when I woke up this morning; a few more inches have fallen since.
I haven’t received my “The City of Minneapolis has declared a Snow Emergency and anywhere you’re even thinking about parking is now illegal” email yet, but I bet it’s on its way.
I’m knitting away on my Koigu Falling Leaves socks – I have about 2/3 of the 2nd sock left to knit. (What baby sweater? Huh? Ends? What are you talking about?)
No knitting pictures today because I wanted to show off my new slippers. One of my lifelong desires has been to own a pair of novelty slippers. As lifelong desires go, it’s pretty lame, true. But I had never come across the perfect pair of novelty slippers for me. There were some Siberian Husky slippers at Target once… only in kids’ sizes. An ex-boyfriend had some bear paw slippers (ala Homer Simpson), but they just really weren’t my thing. Then last week, I discovered… black cat slippers.
Oh yeah. Notice how the tails are shaped very similarly to the Chaotic Kitty’s crooked stubby tail?
“What the…?”
Happy feet! The soles on these slippers are about an inch thick and super cushy.
So far Chaos hasn’t attacked my feet while I’m walking, which I think shows admirable restraint, what with the tails and all.
Perhaps because he was much more focused on playing fetch with his tail-free red sparkly mouse.
“I’m a predator. Get over it.”
It all started harmlessly enough. My dad gave me a prototype knitting bag that one of the rubber stamp designers he works with had given him.
It’s a cleverly designed bag – it has pockets everywhere and is spacious enough for a good sized project. But I don’t do so well with light colors: I spill mochas and pinot noir on them and then set them down in muddy puddles. So this bag holds assorted tools, zippers, and early projects.
I next picked up a bag at the Land’s End Inlet. It’s good sized, has lots of interior pockets, and is water resistant vinyl.
It came with a mysterious little mat and a nifty little bag that was very handy for carrying extra circular needles. Eventually one of my friends broke it to me gently that it was a diaper bag.
Oh.
Soon after, while browsing at Depth of Field, I picked up what became my very favorite knitting bag. Alas, after I got Chaos, the lack of zipper on this beloved bag was extremely problematic.
(Shhh. The bag has been retired to my closet.)
It was replaced by a handy Eagle Creek tote bag that would be perfect if it was just a little wider. (I am completely weak for Eagle Creek bags of all sorts, from luggage to tiny shoulder bags. I probably have at least 15 Eagle Creek bags of various sorts. But, since we’re just talking knitting bags here..)
Moving right along… Next follows an assortment of bags in no particular order. Most hold yarn in my closet or are used for holding inactive projects.
This bag was from Yarnover, the Minnesota Knitter’s Guild’s annual spring market and class event. An attractive bag, but alas – no zipper.
This one’s from (you’ll never guess) the Taos Wool Festival. Since it’s the size of a small suitcase, it’s most suited for shopping at fiber festivals.
I have a pair of Bagsmith’s handy freestanding project bags. I like them, but mostly use them for storage because they don’t have zippers.
This is my sock knitting project lunch box, purchased for $0.25 at a yard sale a few years ago. Completely cat resistant.
I mentioned my Red Tango mini bowling bag a few days ago, so haven’t included it again here.
Here’s a very new bag that I’ve been using to carry my current sock project. It’s a Laurel Burch, about 6″ tall. Purple cats, black cats, green cats. Doesn’t get much better than that. I like this bag so much that I’m ordering a larger version of it because… obviously I don’t have enough knitting bags.
I also have a larger Laurel Burch bag, which was pictured a few weeks ago (without Chaos). It’s a fun bag that I picked up in Taos last year, but it’s so bright I find it traumatic to carry, so I use it to hold inactive WIPs.
Um, yeah, so maybe I have a small problem with knitting bags. Just maybe…
We have our family Christmas on Christmas Eve, starting around 3 pm, so yesterday I was up at 6:30 am, baking a pumpkin pie and finishing Bamboozelle.
The pattern leaves attaching the i-cord until the very end. I decided that it would be a lot easier to attach the i-cord first, so the sewing would be hidden by the lining. If I’d really been thinking, I probably just would have knit attached i-cord around the top lip of the basket and saved myself some sewing. Then I started on the part I was really dreading – the internal structure. I’d picked up some buckram to use for this part.
I initially tried connecting the pieces with tape, as suggested in the pattern. It looked pretty good…
but made this weird crinkling noise that bothered me. So I stitched the corners together. (Let’s just note here that I have extremely rudimentary sewing skills. It would be swell if y’all skipped mocking me on the next bit.).
Bonus – no blood was drawn during the finishing. Some days, I guess that’s all a girl can ask. For all my moaning about this project, I’m mightily tempted to knit Bamboozelle Leatherette for myself – especially since it requires no internal structure or lining. I do love that woven basket stitch… Back to our family Christmas. My stepmom liked Bamboozelle, my sister-in-law liked the tabbycat mittens, and they both liked the wine charms, so all was well. Whew!!!
I got several great knitting gifts. The first was a copy of Alterknits. Although I may never knit a screen door (one of the projects), it’s a beautifully photographed book that doesn’t cover the same territory as most knitting books, so it works for me. And I suppose I’d better just ‘fess up before Jeanne outs me… I’m helpless in the face of a nifty new knitting book. I have a startling number of knitting books for someone who has only been knitting for five years (um, does it help that only 1/2 the top shelf is knitting related?!):
Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot.
The Houston Chronicles
Kim’s BlogPlanet
Alien
Where am I going…and why am I in this handbasket?
Stumbling Over Chaos
Questions
What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was in grad school for rhetoric and technical writing and was actually involved in a relationship (gasp!).
What were you doing a year ago? Pretty much exactly what I’m doing now, except I wasn’t blogging. It’s a wild life, I know, I know.
5 snacks you enjoy?
5 songs you know all the lyrics to
This is kinda hard, because I don’t necessarily remember that I know the lyrics to any particular song unless I’m singing along.
5 things you would do if you were a millionare
5 bad habits
5 things I like doing
5 things you would never wear, get new, or buy new again
Tag 5 people
Last night I got together with Jeanne for a bit of knitting. Since Jeanne and I have both recently started blogging, we discovered that there are new rituals we must learn – mainly, taking more pictures:
Before I tell you anything else about knitting with Jeanne, I have to provide some backstory. I’ve been working on Bamboozelle from knitty for a Christmas present. The pattern has been fighting me from the very beginning.
I’m not using the Alchemy Bamboo called for in the pattern. True, it’s completely gorgeous yarn, but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $28 on 138 yards of yarn for a teeny-tiny basket. Instead, I’m using Southwest Trading Company Bamboo (Fiery Red), which has a lot more yardage, is $14 cheaper, and not nearly as spectacular as the Alchemy Bamboo. The weight of the two yarns is comparable.
After I cast on and started to knit the basketweave pattern, I could tell something wasn’t right. The stitches that slanted to the right looked great, but the stitches that slanted to the left were strangely twisted and not at all like the picture.
I have a fair number of stitch dictionaries, but could only find the “woven basket stitch” in my beloved Mon Tricot Knitting Dictionary (well worth the $0.69 I paid for it at the thrift store).
Bamboozelle has this for the right side row:
knit 1, [knit into back of second stitch on left needle, knit into back of first stitch on left needle, slide both stitches off the needle together] to last stitch, knit 1
Mon Tricot provided this for the right side row:
knit 1, [pass right needle behind first stitch on left needle, knit second stitch on the left needle (through the front of the stitch, as usual), knit first stitch on left needle (through the front of the stitch, as usual), slide both stitches off the needle together] to last stitch, knit 1
The Mon Tricot version looked pretty good on the dishcloth I started for testing stitch patterns because the bamboo yarn didn’t hold up well to being ripped out a few times (it started to get very fuzzy).
Back to the bamboo.
The stitch pattern was fun to knit once I got the hang of it, but I couldn’t read while I worked on it. Anyway, I brought Bamboozelle along last night. Jeanne had a scarf that she quickly decided wasn’t the right use for the yarn and so ripped out. Alas, it turned out she didn’t have another project with her, so she was a bit at loose ends (sorry, couldn’t resist the bad pun).
Meanwhile, I was hoping to get the best of Bamboozelle’s bottom shaping. I was completely stuck on the first row and couldn’t get the count even close to right:
K6, [(k1, k2tog) six times, k10] three times, [k1, k2tog] six times, k6. 90 sts rem.
Jeanne eventually took pity on me (I suspect it was just too painful to watch me knit and tink and knit and tink and knit and tink…) and took over Bamboozelle while I pulled a sock project out of my bag. Whew!
She was great! She knit bottom rows 1 – 8 (um, I think – Jeanne, can you please confirm that?!) with no trouble at all. Obviously, she is very gifted and you should all bring your knitting woes to Jeanne to solve.
Onward. I am completely weak when it comes to knitting bags. Sometime I’ll do an entire entry with nothing but pictures of my knitting bags. You will probably want to stage an intervention. Look at this cute little Red Tango bag (perfect for a small project!) that I picked up at Whole Foods a few weeks ago:
Since I only came home with this bag instead of this bag and the 6 others that I also liked, I think I did pretty well.
Here’s a gratuitous shot of Chaos taken with my new camera. Love my new camera! It’s an Olympus Stylus Digital 800 (and no, I didn’t pay anywhere near the suggested retail price).
Pink Rocket got me back for the tag last week. So… I tag Jeanne, Ana, “me” from Bermuda, mama_tulip, and Carrie K (this just seems a bit long for comments, Kellie!).
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Silk Nog! Yum. I only get to buy one carton, tho.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? When I was a kid, Santa just left them under the tree. It’s been a long time since there were kids in our family – it will be interesting to see what my brother and sister-in-law do eventually.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? So, um, I don’t decorate… but I like both. There’s a classiness to all-white that appeals, and there’s a cheeriness to colored that also appeals.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? I used to when I was a wild twenty-something looking to steal kisses!
5. When do you put your decorations up? I don’t have any decorations. Well, that’s not quite true. I have a purple sequined ball that has a sun on it that’s just so darn nifty I leave it up all year. And Chaos got a Christmas stocking from my sister-in-law last year that I also leave up all year.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Cornbread stuffing.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? I’m always the one who can’t wait anymore, so I pass out the packages and then we go around and each open one gift per round. I love watching everyone open their gifts. We’ve been doing this since I was a kid.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I can’t remember, so apparently I wasn’t crushed!
9. Do you open presents of Christmas morning or Christmas eve? Christmas Eve
10. What kind of cookies does Santa get set out for him? He would get a sampling of everything we had on hand – candy cane cookies, spritz cookies, sugar kuchen, candy, and so forth. My dad loves sweets! 🙂
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? It’s lovely to look at out the window and fun for the occasional snow angel or snowshoeing, but misery to drive in with my rear-wheel drive car.
12. Can you ice skate? Hello? I’m from Minnesota. Like, duh. That said, I really need to have a hockey stick in my hand for good balance.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Last year my brother and sister-in-law made Casa de Chaos for us, which has provided much entertainment for both Chaos and I.
14. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Pumpkin pie with freshly whipped cream, followed closely by candy cane cookies and these amzing chocolate-covered coconut balls that my grandma used to make
15. What is your favorite holiday tradition? See #7 above
16. What tops your tree? No tree = no top
17. Which do you prefer Giving or Receiving? Both are pretty fun, but I’d have to say giving outweighs receiving.
18. What is your favorite Christmas Song? I Believe in Father Christmas by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, followed closely by the speed-metal version of The Little Drummer Boy by the Hoodoo Gurus, and that great David Bowie and Bing Crosby duet
Edited 12/14/05: D’oh! I can’t believe I forgot The Christians and the Pagans by Dar Williams! One of the best holiday songs ever..
19. Do you have a wreath on your front door? No, but my neighbor down the hall does, so I carried Chaos out to look at it.
20. What do you want most for Christmas this year? A decent digital camera! But that wasn’t on my Christmas list. It’d be great if my brother built a shelf add-on for my computer desk.
“What the hell are you doing, Mom?”
Last night I actually got a tiny amount of knitting done on the hat for Maranda’s as yet unborn baby (due on 12/24). I’m very serious about the “tiny” part:
I would’ve gotten more done, but I sat down with everything I needed… except double points. Before I could get up, Chaos was in my lap, purring. Well, ok, I can take a hint – so I just read for a while.
The little red dot near the bottom of the picture is the nose from one of our new fleet of sparkly mice. Chaos has innumerable mice made from real fur, but prefers the fake fur sparkly mice by far. He’ll skid and flip and fly through the air playing fetch with sparkly mice (sorry, my crappy camera’s shutter speed doesn’t do that sort of action), but won’t even get off his butt if I throw real fur mice.
Here’s new red sparkly mouse (with ripped off tail peeking into the corner of the picture), good ol’ sparkly purple mouse (you can’t tell that his face is missing, but you can tell that he’s rather dented), and a blur on the right indicating an incoming cat paw. Sparkly brown mouse is missing in action, so was unable to be part of the picture.
Ok, here’s a weird thing about me: I am freaky about the smell of colognes and perfumes – and don’t even get me started on the smell of dryer sheets. Part of it isn’t so freaky, I suppose, since I’m allergic to a lot of cologne and perfume. The other part of it is… most cologne and perfume just smells like chemicals to me. Icky. I’ll take a nice clean person smell any day.
So what this is all leading up to is… there was a knock on my door at 7:30 am this morning. Now on most days, I would’ve been sitting at my happy little desk in my happy little cubicle since 6:30 am. But on Wednesdays I get to work from home, so I was sitting in my sweats at my computer in my bedroom. At the door is my poor half-frozen neighbor Ron from down the hall. Seems that when he’d started his car and hopped out to scrape the windows, the dastardly car locked itself up, leaving Ron out in the very cold weather with no keys or gloves. Another neighbor let him in the building, and he showed up at my door to use my cell phone (which is all I have, phonewise). No problem. So he used my phone to call work and the car lockout place a few times, and after about 45 minutes of trying to play with Chaos while Chaos hissed at him, he was on his merry way.
I picked up my phone and it smelled like… cologne. Ewwww. So I windexed it and let it dry, then had to take a call from work. Afterwards, I could smell the cologne from the phone on my face. Double ewwww. Obviously the windex didn’t do the trick. So I dug deep into my closet for my special bottle of smell remover:
The phone smells fine now. No, no, it has nothing to do with imbibing the scent remover so that I don’t care about the cologne smell anymore. Look at it. Have you ever heard of the brand? Would you put that stuff in your body?!
Today was one of those vaguely surreal days at work. It started with my coworker Andrea calling me at 6:15 am as I was fumbling around, getting into my car with my work stuff. Andrea was already at work, but alas, she’d arrived there with a large nail in her tire. So I picked her up at the tire place on my way in.
Then at 8:30 my boss stops by and asks if I can follow him to the Volvo dealer so he can drop off his car for a 7:30 am oil change (time delay due to his excessively cryptic Outlook reminder taking over an hour for him to decipher – note to self re: making clear Outlook reminders for personal events). Okey dokey. At least it was all breaking up the day more than usual.
Sidenote: Altho I live in an urban area of the Twin Cities (Uptown Minneapolis), I work in a very suburban area – here’s a picture from the elevator lobby on my floor. Yup, it was as cold as it looks – I think maybe 15F at the time of the picture.
In the middle of the day, I rebooted my computer, and in retaliation my computer refused to acknowledge the perfectly functioning keyboard attached to it. That took LAN Support about 45 minutes of goofing around with three other keyboards, and resulted in my 2nd new keyboard in two weeks (the original keyboard having died in a tragic early morning mocha accident). While LAN Support was puzzling over my persnickety computer, I took the opportunity to take a picture of a recent addition to my cube clutter (approximately 3″ tall), procured entirely due to the black cat on it:
Later in the day, a painting appeared, leaning against the wall in the lobby on our floor. This was interesting because we’ve been in this space for over three years, so why start decorating the lobby now? Apparently there was some disagreement among folks on our floor as to which way they hoped the painting would be hung (should the painting ever move from leaning against the wall, that is). Throughout the afternoon, the painting was moved from position 1 (artist signature in lower left corner)…
to position 2 (artist signature in lower right corner)…
and back. I personally never saw anyone moving the painting, so for all I know, the painting itself was waffling.
And here I am (at home at least), still logged on and working… It’s a sad state of affairs that having to work on a Friday evening caused absolutely no disruption in my personal life, other than to the cat’s feeding schedule and my baby knitting schedule.
