Eastside Stitchers and Black Sheep Bits

Went to Eastside Stitchers this evening. Worked on my feather and fan shawl again, had a problem with an oddity a couple rows prior. I have no idea how it got set up, but 3 sets in from one end, I was short a stitch and there was an odd interlacement. It turns out that the obvious problem was the missing stitch, but the one two stitches over was also out of whack and that's what caused the interlacement.
I'm finally getting better at reading lace! Huzzah!

In other knitting news, I've not played with anything that I got at Black Sheep yet. Probably over the weekend, when I'm taking a break from pharmacy school applications, I will do some Russian style supported spinning.

Using spindles from Skaska and as a result of Galina's wonderful explanations, I finally understand how to do supported spinning. She was very encouraging on Sunday when we stopped by to show her the spinning we'd done on Saturday evening after we left the Gathering for the evening. She said that we had the original overtwist amount (it should twist back on itself in 1.5" increments) and the plying amount (should be 12 twists per inch) about right in spots. It was nowhere near good enough to be really used in a high quality shawl, but it would probably be good enough for my first attempt at lace with handspun.
It's really nice to have a technique that's been giving me fits for over a year just "click".

Back from Black Sheep

We're only just now back from Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene this weekend. A stop for dinner with friends was lovely but did not help me get to bed at a reasonable hour. I'm going to go upstairs and fall down now.
Good night, Moon.

Bussing and Knitting

Well, I'm still mostly just working on my feather and fan swatch. It's growing, but slowly. I spent most of the time at the Eastside SnB last night pulling out a row stitch by stitch looking for something that was missing a stitch. Eventually I found it and got to work forwards for a little while, but then the coffee-shop was closing and we had to pack up and go home.
I've made it into work on the bus two days this week, and I'm really enjoying not having to drive in rush hour. It takes me a bit longer to get in (just over an hour instead of 30-45 minutes (or an hour if traffic's particularly bad)), but I'm not driving! This makes me very happy.
If I can keep it up the bus pass will have been worth it. If not,.. nevermind, that's not an option I like.
Still no pictures. The school applications are posted so I don't really have much extra time for running around on the web. I need to get my academic life history typed onto someone else's forms. Whee! In fact, I'm off to do that now!

SP Oops!

I forgot to mention the tin of wonderful brownies that my SP sent to me in the box I posted about a couple days ago.
They were really yummy! They're gone now.

Knitting is mostly working on my feather and fan swatch. I'm going to start riding the bus into work at least a couple times a week, so I should have about 6 hours a week to knit more than I do now! This ought to do really good things to my finishing ratio. If I can manage to get up between 30 minutes and 1 hour earlier than I currently drag myself out of bed.

Mystery StoleAlong V

Well, after two attempts at completing clue number two, I'm finished. Melanie said she might post clue 3 on Monday and I do rather hope she will. We're nowhere near two fifths done with this stole and since we only have 3 weeks left in the stole-along, I'm getting worried about my ability to keep up with the clues.

My first attempt at clue two was actually completed successfully. Then my roomate and I got into a discussion of the paired double decrease and how it was supposed to be made. So, I looked at my (finished) knitting, thought about leaving it the way it was and wondered how annoyed I'd be if I left this in place.

(edit: resize picture with left leaning double decrease and then put it back here. The one that was too big to fit right was bothering me, so now it's gone)

I decided it would annoy me quite a bit and that I should rip it (thank goodness for the lifeline that I placed at the end of clue one) and redo it with proper double decreases. So I replaced {slip one, k2tog, pass slipped stitch over} with {slip2tog, k1, pass slipped stitches over} and got this

(insert picture with current symmetrical double decrease here).

I'm much happier with what I have now. Fixing it was worth it.

Not Much Knitting

I've done two knitting related things today.

First, I put together my secret pal's box of goodies (with my roommate's help). This is unabashedly a good thing. (And it was lots of fun too...).

Then, I annoyed my roommate by reading bits of the Yarn Harlot's archives at her without thinking to ask if I was interrupting something she had already started. I was. Now I'm hurt because I noticed she didn't want to be interrupted before she figured out how to ask me to stop and read them to her after she was done composing her email. I know it’s unreasonable to be hurt, but tell that to the little voice that says, "You were reading beautifully and it doesn't matter what she was doing, she should have wanted you to continue."
Please excuse me while I beat the little voice with a stick that says “she said it’s funny and wants me to read more later."
I'm back, it shut up.

But I don't really have anything more to say, so I'll sign off for now.
Byeeeeee

p.s. I hope my UFO's don't start writing me threatening letters

Boxes On My Doorstep

My mailman loves me.
Well, probably not really...
But he brought me presents today!

One from my secret pal. She sent me a box of wonderful stuff including a little cloth box with pockets full of sewing implements, a tin of tasty brownies, some sock yarn, a ball of lace yarn, a very cute little card

The other is my fiber for the NWRSA fiber exchange. My fiber is white and I have no idea what the fiber content is. Some of it is hair, but other than that I have no idea. I'll start spinning on it soon since this is my first attempt to spin eight ounces of yarn for a single project. I think I'm going to have to spin it and then see what sort of knitting the yarn is suited for. I have ideas, but it seems like pinning my hopes and dreams on any one of them is a bit too risky given that I don't always wind up with the yarn I expect when I sit down at my wheel.

URL ABC's

These are my URL ABCs:

A is for another-hobby.blogspot.com - My roomate's blog
B is for blogger.com/home - I'm spending too much time here
C is for catalog.kcls.org/patroninfo - I love libraries
D is for d-made.blogspot.com
E is for ebay.com
F is for fullcirclefarm.com - Our farmshare
G is for google.com - The search enging du jour
H is for hobey.blogspot.com
I is for interweave.com/knit/TSC
J is for jensknittycity.blogspot.com
K is for knitpicks.com - Nice, inexpensive yarn
L is for livejournal.com/users/gipsieee/friends - My friends on LJ
M is for mail.yahoo.com - The mail program du jour
N is for nordicfiberarts.com/norskstrikkedesign.html - I'm also lusting after Poetry in Stitches
O is for on-my-needles.blogspot.com - My blog
P is for purlygirls.org - A local SnB
Q is for quixoticpixels.com/index.php/musings
R is for rose-kim.com/rose%2Dkimknits
S is for secretpal5.blogspot.com - Rox Rocks!
T is for two_pointy_sticks.blogspot.com - Gorgeous Yarn
U is for unfurnishedbrooklyn.typepad.com/ufb
V is for vaxgirl.blogdrive.com
W is for woolieacres.blog-city.com
X is for xmarkjenkinsx.com
Y is for yarnharlot.ca/blog
Z is for ______ - I have no 'Z'... This is sad as my last name begins with 'Z'

I realize this is rather silly, but it was entertaining. And I got to see just how many of these links showed up as blogs or blog related stuff and laugh at myself.

Blog Facelift

Well, I didn't get any pictures up yesterday evening, but I did get the darn thing turned a color other than pink. The green is still boring, but is a distinct improvement in my humble opinion.
I knitting news, not much as all I'm doing is continuing work on the feather and fan "gauge swatch".

Mystery StoleAlong IV

Well, I said it was going well.
I lied.
Actually, I was mistaken.

I messed up somewhere in the 3rd pattern row and my yarn overs went wonky. Instead of going back and forth and back and forth, they went back and forth once and then all the following ones pointed off to the left.
I do not know what went wrong, But I ripped it out and started over. My second attempt worked out okay and now I'm done with clue one and get to wait until Friday for the next part of the project.
Waiting is so hard! I'll work on my blog instead.
Maybe even get some pictures onto it since my roomate has started burning me CDs of all the pictures she has on her hard drive. Yay, my own copies of my pictures!

Blog Envy

My roomate has spent the weekend working on her blog. Now mine is still all text and in the funny pink template that I picked because it was the best of the rather blah options available and hers is all pretty and peacock themed. I haven't even really decided what I want to do with mine. I know I don't want it to be pink forever, but she discovered that working within this style sheet is easier said than done where changes are concerned because a number of the pieces are images rather than things that can be controlled by simply coding for a different color.
Mind you I say "simply coding for a different color" and I'm not sure I believe even that is particularly simple. It was a major acomplishment for me to get the ring code up on my site when I first started the blog. And I'm still rather impressed that I did it all by myself. Anthing more than that and I'm afraid I'm going to need to get help.
Help and more free time. The help is easy, I ask the resident computer geek. The free time is a little harder to arrange. So this blog is liable to remain pink for the forseeable future. And, if I'm lucky, I'll figure out how to post pictures to it.... oh, and get links to the blogs I read regularly posted to as sidebar, and... and... and...
I think you get the point. I have lots of things that I'd change if I had unlimited free time. We'll see when I get around to them.

Mystery StoleAlong III

Well, after re-reading the instructions I determined that the first row listed was supposed to be the one that created the first row of stitches on the real yarn. And I'm now one 4 row repeat through the first clue. I'm much slower at this than the people that got finished in about 2 hours, but it's my second attempt at lace, so I think it's going pretty well.
That said, I need stop knitting and to go to bed as we have an ice skating show to perform in tomorrow and I'm still sick so sleep is more important than it would otherwise be.

Mystery StoleAlong II

I found some!
I've always managed to twist my crochet chain when trying to pick up the stitches into the chain which makes them not pull out right.
These instructions have you involve the knitting needle so that you're both making your crochet chain and picking up your stitches all at the same time. It's not-unlike Cat Bordhi's mobius cast on, but with a crochet chain instead.
I'm so happy...
Now if only I could figure out if I'm supposed to pick up a row of stitches and then do pattern, or just start right in on the patterned ones!

Mystery StoleAlong I

Today we got our first clue from the Mystery StoleAlong.
I am unamused that it starts with a provisional cast-on...
That is mostly because I have not yet managed to do a provisional cast-on correctly.
I need to go find directions.
Wish me luck.

Rather late, and I'm not a rabbit

Recently I arrived at an Alice in Wonderland themed tea-party wishing I had a pair of rabbit ears handy.
"I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date, no time to say hello, good-bye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"
Though in that case I was simply fashionably late and had many different sorts of snacky foods in hand that went over very well at the party.

This time, I'm late putting up a post in honor of Memorial Day, the recent holiday that sometimes causes me to get my birthday off work. This year it did not, I merely got a long weekend, but I digress.

Most people think of Memorial Day as a time to honor fallen soldiers, if they think of it at all. This is a wonderful cause and fallen soldiers should be thought of far more often than once a year. Preferably they should be thought of daily, especially when we are engaged in something that causes more of them with distressing regularity.

I prefer to think of Memorial Day as a time to honor those who have died in times of war that were NOT fighting. I take time to honor the women and children who died during war, the old and young men that were not fighting who died despite their innocence. Their deaths are something that should be considered when making the decision to engage in warfare, and all too frequently they are overlooked. Let us remember.

Most years, I also make an effort to challenge someone's thinking on the matter in addition to doing my own remembering. This year, those someones are reading my blog. I do not post political content often and am not planning on changing that and I hope no-one is offended.

It is also rather late at night and I'm going to turn in. After doing just a little more work on my feather and fan shawl. We get our first clue for the mystery stole-along tomorrow and I'm quite excited... I hope I like it!