kmkat and her kneedles

And the knitting continues.

No more discernible progress on the medical mittens.

#2 son and his girlfriend are here this weekend, which reduces the amount of quiet time considerably. And I shall need quiet time with no distractions to perform those mighty cables and snakes and DNA helix. I did knit a round of stockinette on one mitten using the new Addi 2.25mm needle that arrived in the mail on Saturday. The needle that I had in that size had abominable joins, ones that would would have driven me stark raving mad had I attempted to use them for both entire mittens. They practically drove my bonkers on the one round I did with that needle.

Instead of working on the mittens, I made some more baby hats for Rwanda. As Dale-Harriet says, They're like potato chips. You can't knit just one.

Recognize that multicolored wool boucle, lisa? It is going to a good use.

Also in Saturday's mail was a skein of Socks That Rock heavyweight to make another pair of socks for Maggie (#2's girlfriend). She picked out the yarn when they were here last weekend.

 

She likes pink, the brighter, the better. Oh, really, Kat? A pair of socks in this heavy weight, 42 st worked on a US#3 needle, knits up really fast. I took this photo at about 3 pm; it is now 5:24 and I am past the heel. Keep that in mind if you have in mind to knit a pair of socks for someone for Christmas. 

When they were here last weekend they did 99% of the work to put up the Christmas tree.

 

I put on the star. See how nicely it stands up? Not.

 

Matthew also put together the wire shelves you see at the right.

A couple months ago I got the urge to have lots of plants this winter. Usually I get that urge in January, when it is a total and complete crap shoot as to whether I can get the plants home from the store without killing them. Plant shopping in September works much, much better.

Here are some better views.

 

 

The thing that got me inspired this year, I think, was that Smokey brought me an orchid for our anniversary. It is the plant at the right side of the top shelf.

Here's how it looked for two months, until the blossoms faded.

 

The challenge will be to see if I can bring it back into bloom some day.

A wee bit of knitting.

A second chemo cap for my sister-in-law. It went into the mailbox earlier this week.

Yarn: Rowan Calmer, a bit less than one skein.
Needles: Addi Turbo US#6.
Pattern: Cast on 90 st, do a picot knitted-in .75" hem, work even for 5.75", decrease 6 st evenly every other round for a while, then decrease 6 st evenly around every round until there are 6 st left. Break yarn and draw through remaining st.

Cuffs for #1 son's mittens:

These are Cascade Heritage sock yarn, color 5604, 1x1 rib on US#0, 76 st.

I got the charts and instructions for the caduceus today from Colleen, the designer, plus photos of the actual thing.

It.Is.Teh.Awesome.

It occurred to me that I could tell #1 son I am knitting his mittens but not tell him about the caduceus and DNA designs. So I did and got hand measurements from him. Oh, the relief! His hand circumference is 8", exactly what I guessed after measuring my own hand at 7" around. This means that the mittens I am knitting should fit perfectly; I am planning on 1" of positive ease at the knuckles, mittens needing to have a bit of air space for insulation. The cuffs are just the tiniest bit too big for my 7" wrists, so should be perfect for his 8" ones.

The reason I knit both cuffs is because I reached the end of the first cuff at about 10 pm one night earlier this week. I didn't want to quit knitting but I knew it would be pure folly to start a new-to-me and potentially complicated design that late in the day. I knit one round of stockinette on the first mitten, using a US#1 needles and thereby freeing up the US#0 for the second cuff. I reached the end of the second cuff at about that same time of day later in the week, once again knowing enough not to start the design when my brain was not sharp.

Instead, I cast on for a baby hat for Rwanda.

 

The teal -- which is more saturated in real life -- is Knit Picks Main Line in Harbor. Main Line may be discontinued; I don't see it on their website any more. It is worsted weight, 75/25 cotton/merino blend. Of course it is discontinued -- after knitting with it for a bit I decided it was perfect for a February Lady sweater. Damn. The colorful yarn is a bonus that knitnzu threw into the package when I won her contest last spring. It is perfect for this project, having exactly the same color of deep teal as the main color.

And now it is time to attack the mittens for realz. Do I do the DNA helix or the caduceus first? Decisions, decisions...

Thankful Thursday: the knitting edition (the thankful goes on all year).

1. I am thankful for interchangeable needles.
2. I am thankful for Addi Turbos.
3. I am thankful for fiber-bearing animals, and especially thankful that no such animals need to be sacrificed so that I can have lovely yarn. (My father was a mink rancher. The same could not be said for the garments that resulted from his labors.)
4. I am thankful for the furry mammals that share my life. That includes Smokey. :-)
5. I am thankful for Ravelry. What did we do without it?
6. adf
   

QI*: Alan Rickman impersonation.

QI is a British TV *quiz show* much like Wait,Wait Don't Tell Me! on US public radio and is hosted by Stephen Fry. You can watch more clips here. (As funny as they are, they also show, to me at least, how male-centric is British culture.)

* QI stands for Quite Interesting. I spent several hours one day over the T'giving weekend watching clips of the show on YouTube. If it were on TV here -- or at least on Hulu -- I would watch it every week.

Books,

   

What with all the hoo-haw about Twilight saga and the premier of the New Moon movie, I decided I needed to read the books and see what all the fuss was about. Well, I found out -- it's all about romance and teen angst and hormones and chaste passion. Trashy, but enjoyable in an oh-I-don't-normally-read-this-sort-of-thing way.

When I mentioned to our librarian that I had decided to read these, she said that she had heard the writing gets better as the books go on. Maybe so; I'm finding Eclipse less painful than Twilight was, but maybe I'm just getting used to them. The story is enough of a cliff-hanger that I have not tired of it yet. The books are long but a fast read. It certainly is not necessary to read every word or sentence to follow the story. Stephenie Meyer frequently goes on for way too long in the tortured inner dialogues and the endless arguments about who loves who the most and whose fault it is, so I tend just to skim those parts.

If I were a teenage girl I would have read these and been mesmerized by Bella and Edward's romance. He's so damned perfect he makes the adult me want to hurl, but he would certainly have appealed to my adolescent self. The wolf/Native American boy is much more intriguing to my now-self, especially after I looked at the iMDb photos of the movies.

 

Which one would you pick?

(Go here to read a hilarious analysis of the movies.)

(Go here to read how the Edward/Bella thing conforms to fifteen (15!) signs of an abusive relationship. Thanks to KnitThink for that one.)

Summary of Twilight from the Book-A-Minute website:

Edward: I don't know whether to kiss you or drink your blood.
Bella: That's so hot.

...and that pretty much sums them up.

* * * * *

Speaking of books, you know the black paperback Penguin editions of literary classics? You can now buy the complete set for a mere $8,047.98, reduced from the regular low price of $13,413.30.

...and now your Christmas shopping is all done, too. You're welcome!

Fun with food.

At dinner Friday night:

Look, Mommy, I wrote my name!

* * * * *

Behold, see what happens when one uses the last of the very, very, very old -- and hence dry -- bread flour (at least 2+ years old) PLUS a cup of extremely old and dry craisins in the bread baker AND for some unknown reason decides not to add the tablespoon or two of extra liquid that has enabled the past three loaves using this old flour to turn out perfectly:

 

 

Despite its gnarled and craggy appearance, the bread was delicious. Must have been the cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves...

DIY yarn swift.

Found via ikeahacker:

 

If you are a DIY-er this may interest you. If there is a DIY-er in your family who is pondering what to make/give you for Christmas, let me know and I will send that person this link anonymously ;^)

How to make a Lazy Susan yarn swift.

Query: Why is the Kauni Effektgarn yarn cake in the photo being wound back into a skein? Does anyone ever do this? I'm thinking it was done just for the photo op.

Caturday.

Eye candy Friday: the random edition.

 

Carved ostrich eggs in store window, Cape Town, South Africa; December 2005.

* * * * *

Thank you all for your help in finding someone to design the caduceus for the Christmas mitten! Lisa hooked me up with an amazing Canadian knitter (I know, that's redundant) who has already knit a prototype for me. Follow the link to her Ravelry page -- she has done amazing stuff.

I'm going to share the other resources that y'all offered me -- there are some really good ones.

From Ruth @ 5elementknitr: "...this woman does outstanding things with dishcloths and she has a whole medical category here. There's two caduceus...es - one at the top and one if you scroll down a bit. They are not cables just knit/purl and when I bought a design from her before, there's no charts, just row by row instructions." digknittydesigns

(Blogless) Berta in Texas sent me to Knitting Pattern Central for several dishcloths that have wings in their design. Several are by RaAnn Clegg, who clearly loves to create knit and purl designs and is very good at it.

KMK (she and I share the same initials) told me about the DNA helix scarf she had in medical school. A light bulb went on over my head. The mittens will be fraternal twins: the other one will have the DNA helix design on the back.

Helen offered to design for me, but she has several (amazing!) things OTN right now and wouldn't be able to get to it right away.

Thanks again -- you guys are the BEST!

* * * * *

In addition to November being the month of NaNoBloMo and NaNoWriMo and Vestvembe, it is also Novembeard...

 

...in which Matthew is clearly participating.

He showed me another of his artistic creations, one which is in the header rotation over at MplsBikeLove.com.

 

Here's a closer look:

 

He and Maggie surprised me at 8:30 last night by showing up with a pumpkin pie cheesecake and saying, "No one should be alone on Thanksgiving." What a couple of sweeties they are.

* * * * *

And now, in honor of Black Friday/National Buy Nothing Day, one last image:

Share the thankful.

Reposted from Knit Think:

" 'Tis the season for thankfulness, and I have many reasons to be so. If you also have much to be thankful for and can share, please read Laurie's blog post and consider helping someone who could desperately use some reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving season"