kmkat and her kneedles

FO Friday.

It is probably cheating a little if the FO in question is 2010, isn't it? And so I will offer these instead.

First up, the cowl for Alex, Matthew's girlfriend:

Yarn: Knit Picks Andean Silk in Allspice, to match the 16-Cable Hat I made for her last month.
Pattern: Tuesday Night Cowl. No mods, pattern is perfect as written.
Needles: Knit Picks US#7 circ.

The cowl starts from a provisional cast-on, is worked lengthwise, then the ends are Kitchenered together. That's 71 stitches of Kitchenering. Can you tell where I did it?

   
(Color in the photo at top is most accurate. Don't know why these came out so differently.)

I can't tell, either. That Kitchener stitch is magic. As many times as I have done it, I still don't understand exactly how it works. 

Next up on the finishing block were the Dimorphous Mittens. Please note the stunning I-cord bind off on the outer mitts.

Yarn: (outer mitts) Noro Yuzen, about half a skein each of #9 and #14.
(inner mitts) Frog Tree Pediboo (80% merino / 20% bamboo) in the delightfully named '1011', a bit less than one skein; 20 - 30 yards each of Knit Picks Gloss fingering weight (70% merino / 30% silk) in 'Dolphin' and 'Dusk', respectively.
Needles: (outer) Addi Turbo US#5 circ.
Pattern: Dimorphous Mittens. Besides adding the slip-stitch colorwork to the inner mittens, the only mod was a different, more rounded method of decreasing at the fingertips. It takes 12 rows, so figure out when to start based on your row gauge and how long you want the mittens to be:

• *K3, k2tog*. Repeat between *s around.
• Knit 3 rounds even.
• *K2, k2tog*. Repeat between *s around.
• Knit 1 round even.
• *K1, k2tog*. Repeat between *s around.
• Knit 1 round even.
• K2tog around. Repeat this round if necessary to get down to 6 - 8 st.
• Break yarn and thread through remaining stitches. Draw tight and weave in end.

As much as I like how these mittens look, they have two problems:

1. They are so warm that I may never actually need to wear both inner and outer mitts as intended.
2. They are so bulky that I cannot do ANYTHING with my hands except use them as paws.

And so I may end up wearing only the inner mitts. Or maybe I'll break down and buy another pair of leather gloves to replace the ones I lost at the end of last winter.

::sigh::

But at least I learned how to do the I-cord bind off.

* * * * *

Remember the wool dryer balls? They have turned out to be absolutely useless in eliminating -- or even reducing -- static electricity. What a surprise (not). Back to the aluminum foil balls...

::sigh x2::

* * * * *

Wishing you all a most enjoyable and beneficent new year!

 

WIP Wednesday.

Back in 2005 when I got back into knitting big-time, I bought a pattern for a felted purse. It was the Oregon Tote by Janet Scanlon (scroll down to the second purse, the peach and yellow one). On the advice of the LYS clerk I bought bulky weight Lamb's Pride, which I chose in black, brownish-red, and heathery brownish-red. I chose the second and third because they would match my winter coat. Back in 2005 I had little or no designing experience and there was no Ravelry (oh, the horror!), so it took me a lot of knitting and frogging and reknitting to come up with a stripe pattern I found to be acceptable. 

Here is what I finally settled on, using bits of other feltable yarns in my then-stash.

Looking at it now, after having checked out the 132 other Oregon Totes on Ravelry, I see it as woefully simplistic. Whatever. No way am I going to frog and reknit it, especially since that particular winter coat met the trash last winter. (Too many rips and tears to donate, darn. It was eight years old and had been worn to death.)

Why did it sit, unfinished, for five years? Because the top edge was to be finished off with three rounds of I-cord bind-off, and I couldn't understand the instructions. I had done I-cord, but this bind-off was just too difficult. So it sat, occupying a knitting bag and cable from my old Boye interchangeable needle set, for a long, long, long time.

Recently I finished my Dimorphous Mittens (coming soon to a blog near you), which have an I-cord bind-off on the outer mitts. I sucked it up and visualized how such a bind-off might work and walked through it in my head and did it. I still don't know if my version is *correct* because I haven't taken the time to look it up on YouTube or elsewhere, but it worked and it looks exactly like an I-cord bind-off should.

Whilst doing the mittens the thought in the back of my head was that once I had finished them I would be ready to tackle this aged UFO.

Behold a fuzzy photo!

 

Three rounds of I-cord bind-off (well, two completed and one ready to go) with the requisite slots through which to thread the I-cord straps.

Reading the I-cord instructions now, after five years of intensive knitting, I still find them incomprehensible. They are, in fact, the worst knitting directions I have ever read. Besides the aforementioned I-cord nonsense, I cannot find where it says where to put the slots for the straps. It is clear that one should make them when doing the first round of I-cord, but placement within that round is imprecise, if "imprecise" is taken to mean "not specified at all". The comments on Ravelry suggest that the pattern has since been rewritten to be clearer. That is particularly good, since this is fundamentally an easy knit and an excellent first project for a new knitter.

Ten on Tuesday, the New Year edition.

Ten Intentions for the New Year.

1.  Finish all UFOs. I have already started on this.

2.  Knit from stash as much as possible. Just like the past three years. 

3.  Knit myself another sweater. Yay!

4.  Exercise regularly -- walking, either outside or on treadmill; back and knee and ankle exercises. This and the next one are gonna be challenging. 

5.  Lose at least 5% of body weight.

That's enough for me. Now for the rest of the county.

6.  Wholesome, healthy, affordable local food available at the supermarket.

7.  Universal health care.

8.  Adequate funding for basic social and public health programs, public protection, conservation, education, cultural institutions, and public transportation systems.

9.  Social justice.

10.  Whirled peas.

Merry Christmas from Paul, TJ, Zoe, and Ginger. And me.

Normal pancreas.

My doc called this morning to tell me I have a normal pancreas, yay! She said she will have to bake cookies for the medical records department because it took an act of god to get my results. Whatever.

Thank you all for your concern. Now we can all have a merry Christmas!

An FO is an FO, no matter how small.

I just finished wrapping the Christmas presents.

Back when I was a teenager I spent two Christmas seasons wrapping gifts in the little department store in my home town. That taught me how to wrap efficiently and tidily, although our results (my best friend and I worked there together) pale when compared to the gift-wrapping you might get at Saks or Macy's or Nordstrom. It has always surprised me how long it takes to wrap gifts. It seems like once the thinking and the deciding and the schlepping from store to store (in the old days) and the internet shopping (now) and the buying is done, the last step should be over in a snap. This year it seemed to go quickly, maybe because I knew it would take a while or maybe because there were not all that many presents to wrap or maybe because I was listening to an audio book (last bit of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, then Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life, thanks for asking). Anyway, the task is done for another year.

Note: The Leinie's box visible in the background is NOT a Christmas gift. It just happened to be sitting in the right spot to look that way. (If you are not from the Upper Midwest, you may not know about Leinie's. Follow the link to become informed.)

* * * * *

You may have noticed the balls on the bottom shelf of my cart. They are the FO in the title, dryer balls that I made. We have used dryer sheets forever, but I heard about using wadded-up balls of aluminum foil to eliminate static electricity so I tried those. Two foil balls didn't seem to reduce the static much, and I started to have bits of aluminum foil all over the laundry room. Apparently a ball of wadded-up aluminum foil doesn't last forever -- who knew?

But felted yarn balls? Perfect project for a knitter with some extra yarn. Brown, purple, and dark green. I chose dark colors to avoid any possibility of adding lint to the dark loads. My dryer sucks at removing lint.

Three felted balls, however, were not enough -- still had static cling. So I made some more. Blue, maroon, and black, at left. 

I haven't done laundry since I made them so I don't know whether six balls will work any better than three. Stay tuned. They were fun to make, though :)

* * * * *

No word on the CT scan yet. Thanks for all the good wishes! My doc finally called me today to tell me she cannot find the results in my chart.

Headdesk.

The scan was done at a hospital in MN that is in a completely different health care conglomerate than my usual and hospital and clinics, which is probably why the information flow is less than optimal. Still, I have made numerous calls on Tuesday and Wednesday and again today to both places, making sure that the results were transmitted to the right place and that my doc was reminded to call me. Apparently the only call that mattered was the one today to ask the nurse to remind her to call. In her favor, my doctor gave me her personal cell number to call her tomorrow at home -- she is off tomorrow -- to find out if the results have been found.

As I said above, stay tuned...

Ten on Tuesday, the gift edition.

Ten Last-Minute Gift Ideas.

1. A hand-knit sweater. Not.
    
2. A Calorimetry. THAT is doable.
    
3. One of Judith Durant's One-Skein Wonders books and a skein (or three) of luscious yarn. The best part is you get to go yarn-shopping.
    
4. 99 Essential Christmas Masterpieces from Amazon. It only costs $1.99 (if you bought each individually it would be $98.01), and it ships online. From Roger Ebert on Twitter.
    
5. A tin of home-made [fill in the blank -- fudge, cookies, candies, whatever you are good at]. One year I made several different kinds of spiced nuts. They were a hit and, I like to think, a welcome break from the never-ending stream of sweets.
    
6. A donation to the recipient's favorite charity. This is what I did for #1 Son for his birthday earlier this month and he was quite pleased. It becomes increasingly difficult to come up with an appropriate gift when one's offspring is 26 and lives a thousand miles away.
    
7. *Gift certificate* good for something you will do for the recipient -- snow shoveling, childcare, lawn mowing, future knitting, whatever.
   
   
8.  Oops, I'm out of ideas. Good luck!

 

Coupla things.

On Friday I went to the annual Christmas Tea and Living Nativity at the county nursing home, where I am on the board. I thought about bringing my camera but didn't because of privacy concerns. So I will have to paint word pictures for you.

I arrived just as the hostess was welcoming everyone, and I slipped into a chair in the back of the activities room where about 100 people were in the audience. There were residents in wheel chairs and walkers and lots of people from the community. My first clue about how cool this was going to be was the queue of residents in wheel chairs in the hall outside the activity room.

They were dressed in quasi-Biblical robes and headdresses, and a staff person was carrying a tiny baby, who looked to be about a month old.

In the front of the activity room was the narrator with his script and microphone and a woman seated at the piano behind him. There was a small group of six residents in choir robes with songbooks. A couple more people in dark robes and headdresses stood to one side, and over the top of the audience heads I could see...

a llama.

Turned out his name was Don Juan and he has participated in this play since 2002. For the first three years his owner, an employee in the activities department, put a fake hump on his back with a blanket over it, but no one figured out that Don was supposed to be a camel so she quit that part.

The narrator began the Christmas story. Staff members wheeled in Mary and Joseph in their wheel chairs and another brought in the baby, who cried loudly. Two-thirds of the three wise men walked in, the third was pushed in his wheel chair. A little boy of about 3 walked up the aisle with his little drum while a member of the small choir sang The Little Drummer Boy. Three angels in wheel chairs were recognizable as divine by the gold garlands twined about their heads and necks.

It was all totally charming, and I plan to attend again next year. They have been doing it for 24 years and this is the first year the baby has cried. That's a pretty good run, I'd say.

* * * * *

Several years ago I had a spate of gall bladder problems. Tests revealed that while mine was no poster child of gall bladder health and functionality, it was not bad enough to warrant surgery. 

A few weeks ago I started having what I thought were the same symptoms again, and I trekked back to the doctor expecting that this time I might end up gall bladder-less. Lab tests and an ultrasound showed my gall bladder (and right kidney and liver) was fine but that there was "an odd contour on the side of the pancreas." Um, huh? On Monday I have a CT scan to get a better look. Let's all think positive thoughts for me, m'kay?

* * * * *

Andrew will fly in at 6:30 tonight from New York and will be home for two whole weeks. Smokey has stocked the freezer accordingly with a ham and steaks and lobsters and an entire beef tenderloin. (Oink.) It will be good to have #1 Son here for awhile. Matthew and GF Alex will be here for Christmas, I think, although Smokey will work a day shift that day. I am kinda sorta planning to slip out of Christmas dinner cookery and take the kids to the Christmas dinner sponsored at a lovely north woods lodge sponsored by a local commercial club. I have done that a couple times in the past few years, and it is a lot more pleasant than slaving in the kitchen. I like to cook but not that much.

Friday video: just for fun.

I saw this on three separate sites yesterday. Is that the beginning of "going viral"?

Judging by the ladybug's actions I am guessing they are extremely short-sighted.

Googlausten.

Today is Jane Austen's 235th birthday. Happy birthday, Jane! 

Thanks to @amycrea, who tweeted this.

Watch this of the day.

Thanks, blackbird!

* * * * *

I switched to Chrome last night because Firefox has been wonky lately -- hanging up and giving me the spinning beach ball every time I click on something. I had read that Chrome is a more stripped-down browser that runs faster and it seems to be true. Also, I found that in Chrome the YouTube video is watchable in the editing box on Typepad; in Firefox the video was just a blank yellow box with the Flash logo in the center. To see the actual video I had to go to Preview. I think I like Chrome :)

That's your free tech tip of the year -- don't spend it all in one place.

Ten on Tuesday, the to-do edition.

Ten Twenty Things on My To-Do List. 

1. Clean my office.
   
   
   
2. Blow the dust off the Christmas tree and plug in the lights.
    
   
3. Wrap Christmas presents.
    
   
4. Clean my office.
   
   
   
5. Go through my county email inbox.
    
   
6. Clean my office.
   
   
   
7. Put on boots, coat, scarf, mittens, and hat and slog up the driveway to retrieve the mail from Saturday, Monday, and today.
    
   
8. Clean my office.


9. Finish the outer mittens of the Dimorphous Mittens.
    
   
10. Clean my office.
    
    
    
11. Vacuum the living room, dining room, and bedroom.
     
    
12. Clean my office.
     
    
13. Wash Andrew's bedding before he comes home on Saturday.
     
    
14. Clean my office.
    
    
    
15. Take a shower when the temperature in the house rises above 65˚. (Hasn't been > 57˚ since Saturday; 52˚ when I got up this a.m.)
    
    
16. Clean my office.
    
    
17. Knit Tuesday Night Cowl for Matthew's GF for Christmas. It will match the 16-Cable Hat I made her. Yarn is probably in the mailbox right now (see #7).
     
    
18. Clean my office.
    
19. Bake some stuff. Cookies? Bread(s)? Cake(s)? Pie(s)?
     
20. Clean my office.

Oh, did I mention that my office is a mess and that I need to get on that? Now that I have shamed myself in public perhaps I'll have more of an incentive...

I only win when I forget I entered.

Friday night Smokey was attempting to move cars around so that when the Blizzard Of The Century™ arrived our driveway would be passable. In the process one of the vans got stuck snugged next to a tree and Da Yeep broke. Pretty much everything went wrong. However, he had also retrieved the mail from the mailbox, and when I went out to help with the stuck van I found there was a package for me. From Webs. Which I didn't remember ordering.

Turns out I won a contest. Which I didn't remember entering.

W00t!

That's four miniskeins (total 500 yds.) of superwash merino sock yarn in the bag at left. Here they are spread out.

The other yarn is three ±450-yard skeins of fingering-weight merino/silk/cashmere blends, plus there are three patterns from BBF. Not shown is a book: Knit So Fine: Designs with Skinny Yarn by Lisa R. Myers, Laura Grutzeck, and Carol Sulcoski (she of Black Bunny Fiber Fame).

I say again, W00T!

* * * * *

Inasmuch as I already own that book, I decided this would be a fine time for a contest with the new book as the prize. The contest has been in the back of my mind for awhile. Nothing like a contest to bring the lurkers to the comment box ;-)

Remember my glass head? The one that I use to model hats?

That head needs a name.

The contest will have two winners: the person who comes up with the name I like the best and another person selected randomly. The first winner gets the book and the second the bag of miniskeins. (Or the other way around; the first winner gets his or her choice, second winner gets the other.) Contest closes on Thursday, December 16, at midnight CST. You can leave your entry in the comments, or, if you want to ensure that no one else steals your idea, you can email it to me at the addy near the top of the sidebar.

The head was happy to pose for her photoshoot with some yarn that is going to be a hat for me. I love the difference between using the flash and not.

Name that head!

Winter is icumin in.

Sumer  Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu snowplow!

I don't know how much it snowed here.  We are on the northern tier of The Great Blizzard of Aught Ten and probably didn't get as much snow as the Twin Cities; 17" at the airport there and 22" in the far southwestern suburbs. I'd guess we got something in the 8-10" range. The reason I cannot be more precise is that I have not gone out and do not intend to. Smokey is in Minneapolis working doubles and the snowplow is broken, so I am not going anywhere.

Matthew The Invincible emailed me last night about the bike ride he took on Saturday. Actually, he wrote that mostly he walked the bike. Even with those super-fat tires, 16" of snow is a bit of an obstacle to pedaling.

The view from my desk chair.

Usually we can tell how much snow has fallen by the depth on the railing, but it has been so windy that that is not an accurate measure right now. At least I don't have to worry about the roof caving in... like the Metrodome. (When I googled to find a link to the Metrodome story the first one I clicked on was from the India Times site. I guess it is Big News.)

The forecast:

Those are the raw F˚, folks, none of your wimpy C˚ or your inflatable wind chill temps. I knew it was cold when I woke up this morning because it was 57˚ in the house. I'm comfortable in two pairs of pants, a t-neck, a sweatshirt, and wool socks. Plus fingerless gloves and a Calorimetry if necessary. If all else fails I can burn the cats for warmth.

Wait. Don't tell them I said that. I would never burn them. Not enough BTUs in a flaming cat.

I'd burn the dogs.

Wait. They would yield more heat if I put away the matches and strapped one on each side of me. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Okay, Kat™ out. I'm off to find a dog and some straps.

How music works.

That is Part 1 of Melody. There are 4 more parts on that topic, plus similar 5-part series on rhythm, harmony, and bass. When you have a little extra time, watch them all. It will take several hours. Or watch them one at a time and stretch it out over several weeks like an especially yummy box of chocolates. You will learn a lot. I did.

(If you have ever studied music in depth you may already know most of this, but the videos are still interesting. Watch them anyway.)

 

 

 

Hell on earth.

Next time you think your job sucks, remember this. (Be sure to check the hover text on the photo.)

Lioness, cubs, keeper, and more lions.

More winter.

Video recorded at Saltburn-by-the Sea, which is here:

WIP FO Wednesday.

I turned in the hat and mittens yesterday to the yarn shop that is collecting them. The sun cooperated by shining in the morning; I wanted to get some photos of the hat with a low-angle sun so that the pattern stitch showed up really well.

Ta-da!

(Unfortunately, the low-angle light also shows off every uneven, wonky stitch really  well, too.)

Hat.
Yarn: Berrocco Vintage (50% superwash wool / 50% acrylic) leftovers from my colorful socks and the recent baby sweater. The lavender is Louet Gems superwash worsted leftover from my kimono sweater.
Needles: US#5 Addi Turbos.
Pattern: Sunflower Tam from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan.
Mods: The pattern calls for casting on 90 st in worsted weight yarn on US#6 needles for the child's size. I have knit a lot of worsted-weight hats, and that seemed to me a bit large for a child's size so I used #5 needles instead. The Berrocco is a light worsted weight, so it all worked out fine. Looking at the 400+ tams on Ravelry that have been made from this pattern, I noticed a lot of comments that the hat was too large. Yep, it would have been.

I had planned to knit (what I thought were ) the traveling stitches with the maroon yarn, having them travel across the variously colored stripes. But once I read the pattern a bit more carefully, I found that those phyllotaxis lines were created with mock cables (k2tog and leave on left needle, insert right needle tip between the stitches and knit the first stitch, drop stitches from left needle), and it was too much for my meager brain to cope with to do them in a different color than the working row. I tried doing them as twisted traveling stitches, but that, too, was more putzing than I really wanted to do. So I just went with the stitch pattern as written and contented myself with the stripes. (And finished the hat in an afternoon, as previously mentioned.)

Mittens.
Yarn: Same as above.
Needles: Same as above.
Pattern: Target Wave Mittens from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan.

The thumbs on these stick straight out to the side, which looks pretty darned strange. But they seem to fit fine; the adaptability of knitted fabric wins again :)

Ten on Tuesday, the holiday entertainment edition.

Ten Favorite Holiday Shows.

1. Love Actually.
2. (Okay, the rest of these are not necessarily favorites, but rather the only ones I can think of that I have watched.) A Christmas Carol at the local/regional professional theater. I saw it last week, excellent as always.
   
3. A Christmas Story.
4. Charlie Brown's Christmas.
5. (Okay, I'm out.)