Radioactive Knitting

I have thyroid cancer

2011-12-05T17:11:00.001-06:00

For some reason my insurance company had a thing where if you go get a physical they’d give you money. So on the day of the deadline we remembered this and were like, “uhhhh… let’s go get physicals and get money” and called all the doctors and got an appointment.

I went in all frazzled with a tiny new baby and the doctor (who was awesome, btw, he turned off the lights and let me keep my white noise app going for the whole appt so the baby would sleep in a moby) felt my neck and said he felt a lump on my thyroid and I should have it checked out.

So I got an ultrasound and went and talked to an endocrinologist who said it was probably a postpartum thing and we’d check to see if it went away on its own in a couple months. And so they scheduled a biopsy for a couple months later which was last week and the biopsy person was like, “We’ll just take some tissue from this big nodule on the left. And what the heck, there’s a tiny nodule on the right, let’s get some from there, too.” Turns out the tiny one on the right is cancerous.

Papillary thyroid cancer. Apparently it's not too uncommon and is "very treatable." I have to have my thyroid taken out tomorrow. If they don't think they were able to get it all, I will need to take radioactive iodine to kill off the rest of the thyroid cells. This will really suck. I will have to stop breastfeeding because if I am lactating the radiation be stuck in my boobs forevar! Radioactive boobs! Not as cool as it sounds. Then I will have to eat an iodine free diet for a couple weeks (what the heck do I eat?). Then I will take the radioactive iodine and I won't be able to be within a few feet of anyone for several days, and not around Audrey for at least a week. And pretty much anything I touch will have to be thrown out or something. Yep. If I am knitting, it will be radioactive knitting. How's that for ya? (ok, that's not really how science works, but they make you get rid of everything anyway.)

So yeah. I'm really really hoping my surgery tomorrow goes well and we'll be able to go home for Audrey's first Christmas. My mom is here helping out for the week, so that is good.

Ugh.

Audrey P. at 2 months

2011-09-16T14:45:00.001-05:00

Audrey keeps changing so much! Every 3-5 days she's a completely different person. It's so crazy. Here's a video of my babe hamming it up. She is just about to start laughing I think. And I figured out the other day that if we do tummy time draped over the boppy it makes her smile and talk so much! I heart her.

I had a baby!

2011-07-14T14:28:00.001-05:00

Audrey Elizabeth was born at 7:04 am on Sunday, July 10th (Sean's birthday, and 16 days after her due date). She weighed 7lbs, 5oz and was 19" long.

After the biophysical profile showed that she was in no hurry to vacate the premises, I went to see my midwives on Saturday. They knew that if I went all the way to Wednesday when the doctor wanted to see me again, I'd pretty much be guaranteed to be induced which isn't what we wanted, so they swept my membranes, gave me some "Start Up" herbal stuff, had me continue to use the breast pump, told me to walk around as much as possible, basically do everything that might possibly get this party started. At the appointment I was only dilated 2 cm and 50% effaced.

Around 4:30ish, my contractions changed from cute little Braxon-Hicks ones to "ummmm, this hurts" ones and were about 5 minutes apart, lasting for a minute, that whole deal. Around 9ish, the midwives came over to check me out. About the same time, a couple of Sean's friends showed up- apparently they were at a party down the street and were totally drunk. This has nothing to do with the story, but was totally random and ridiculous. I yelled at them to go away and got checked and was 4 cm, 90% effaced. The midwives told me to take some Benedryl and try to sleep and they took off. I don't like Benedryl (I would have slept through the whole thing and I don't think that would have been very helpful) so I didn't. My contractions started picking up pretty good right after they left, and we had the midwives come back around 11:30ish (right after they'd gotten home and gone to bed, natch).

Once they got back, I got in the pool (a kiddie pool with happy sharks and seahorses and turtles and things to cheer me on!) and that helped a bit. I was most comfortable just sort of sitting in there, which felt best but probably wasn't the most effective position. Oh well. Eventually they made me change positions, then get out for awhile to labor on the couch. Every time I moved it hurt way more than it did once I was settled. My body wanted to push when I was only at 7 cm, and trying to keep from doing so pretty much totally sucked. When it got really, really bad I was like "I'm going back in the pool now" and they checked and it was time to push. They let me push sitting in the pool for about an hour until they were like "ok dude, time for the birth stool so you can actually make some progress here." (My water still hadn't broken at that point.) So I got on the birth stool and pushed. About 4 minutes and a bruised tailbone later, they handed me my baby. That was a bit surreal. She was slimy and amazing. :)

They got us all wrapped up so we could all snuggle together on the couch for awhile while they cleaned everything up. They made an herbal healing hippie bath for me to get washed up and that felt great. Audrey joined me once they were done measuring her and doing whatever baby checks they do. Then Sean and Audrey and I took a nap while the midwives went to IHOP (jealous!). They came back, stitched me up, finished the laundry (how on earth did they get our towels so clean? I was sure they were totally done for), double checked that everyone was doing well and then left us. alone. with a newborn.

Luckily, she's the best baby ever. So calm and happy and easy to figure out what she wants. They came back and checked on us Monday and Tuesday and everyone was doing great!

So there you go. Awesome homebirth story. And awesome baby. <3 <3 <3

...and now I've got a placenta in my freezer.

A+

2011-07-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

Lil' Miss Stubborn got 10/10 on her biophysical profile, which means since I'm doing well and she's doing well, there's no good reason to induce us, and I'm still cleared for a homebirth. If she's not here by next Wednesday, I get to go back to check again. Overachiever baby.

42 Weeks

2011-07-08T11:00:00.000-05:00

Yep. That's about it. Going to the doctor in a couple hours to figure out what's up with Lil' Miss Stubborn.

Cute lil thing!

2011-06-28T16:48:00.000-05:00

At my almost-40 week appointment, my midwives were like "uhh, dude, your baby your baby is breech, you should go get an ultrasound to confirm it since if she is you have to deliver at a hospital." So I went to get an ultrasound. It was so cool! The baby still seems to be a girl and she's soooo cute. Her face is in the upper left corner of that picture and her right arm is across most of it, if you can't tell. Somehow in between weeks 39 and 40 she'd managed to go from the nice head down position she'd been in for months to the exact opposite of that. Weird. I went back to see my midwife and she pushed on my belly for about an hour and she was able to squish that baby back where she should be. It was pretty crazy.

Now I'm 4 days past my due date with no end in sight. Ah well. She'll be here soon enough.

Garden, blanket, baby, stuff like that

2011-06-17T11:21:00.000-05:00

My garden is doing better than it was after the floods. I reseeded most things a couple weeks ago, so maybe the long growing season down here will be an advantage. Most things are trying hard to come up this time.

The rosemary and basil (both growing in pots instead of the raised bed, argh) are doing great and I use them all the time. The carrots and pumpkins look like they might end up doing pretty well, too. Something weird and diseasey is going on with the tomatoes, but they are growing pretty green stumpy leaf things, so I'll just let them be, whatever. The radishes look pretty good (at least that's what the caterpillars think). The corn might end up ok, but I am not very optimistic that we have enough for them to actually be pollinated so we'll see about that. The spinach is the only thing that just refuses to do anything. Maybe it's a bad batch of seeds or something. Either way, I like watching everything grow!

I finished knitting the baby blanket. I think it turned out even better than I expected! It's a bit on the bright side...

I'm still pregnant. Luckily, I'm due next Friday, and due dates mean that that is the day the baby will be born, so yay! ;)

It's awfully hot here

2011-06-05T21:08:00.000-05:00

There's the belly. May as well put it first since I am getting used to following it around. It's been sooo hot, like in the 100's, this week. I have a feeling that being pregnant for the next 3 weeks till my due date and most likely the week or two after that are going to totally suck. At least I got cleared for a homebirth so any time that this baby feels like coming, I guess I just jump in my cute little smiling sharks pool and she'll just pop right out. ;)

Baby adventure blanket

2011-06-02T16:27:00.000-05:00

I've been making a baby blanket. It's not done yet, but it's getting there...

The pattern is An African Adventure

Shorter hairs

2011-05-18T10:42:00.001-05:00

I got my hair cut! Woohoo!

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Karate & Stuff

2011-05-15T21:13:00.000-05:00

I went to a karate tournament! I feel like I did pretty well all things considered. The things to be considered in this case are:
1) I am 34 weeks pregnant. Standing up from the couch is an ordeal.
2) I have only been doing this style of karate for a year, and am a white belt in it.
3) Since I have a black belt in a different style, I was in the black belt division and so I did kata from my old style.
4) I haven't practiced these kata in earnest with guidance from people who know them for over a year.
5) They are unfamiliar to the people judging me.
6) I had to sort of modify the bowing and kiai yelling and stuff to try to fit in with their style and it was weird.

There were 3 people total in the black belt women's division for weapons and empty-hand kata. I got 2nd in weapons and 3rd in kata. Woo!

Here's a video. Well, most of a video. Yeah.

Also yesterday, the wonderful people at knit night had a baby shower for me! They are so awesome and I am so glad I found such a great group of people to hang out with!!!

Here's what I look like at 34 weeks:

Kitty

2011-05-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

I love this picture.

This picture less so.

I really don't like this one, but he is all better now so I guess it's all good.

I <3 my kitty.

They're for poop!

2011-05-02T16:44:00.001-05:00

It's probably not reasonable to be this excited about diapers, is it?

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Weather

2011-05-02T11:57:00.001-05:00

The weather here sucks. We've had some kind of storm all but a couple of days for the past 3 weeks. By "some kind of storm," I mean almost always accompanied by a tornado warning. For those who aren't from tornado-y places, a tornado warning means that there is an actual tornado according to the radar or a weather spotter and you better darn well find a place to hide and the sirens are going off and it's loud and obnoxious and scary. Oh yeah, and people die. The tornado that struck 2 miles from my house killed 2 people. It also broke our patio umbrella and a whole bunch of trees in our little backyard.

I'd been planning to post about our awesome garden that we spent several weeks setting up, complete with a whole sprinkler system so I wouldn't have to go outside and get bitten by mosquitoes to water it. It's so cool. I've been growing seedlings inside since the last week in January and finally got to plant them and have been watching it grow and it's been so exciting. We've got 24 different kinds of plants (partly because I am way overambitious and partly because I'm not sure what grows well around here).

Here is is yesterday, completely flooded with the 3-8 inches (depending on your source) of rain that fell and is still coming down like crazy. Poor little drowneded planties.

Cute

2011-04-27T19:32:00.000-05:00

My favorite new game: Chasing/ pushing a teeny foot around my belly.

Nursery

2011-04-24T18:25:00.003-05:00

I am so excited about this nursery. As in, "the kid's not due for more than two months and it's nearly completed" excited. It's pretty much been my main focus for the last little while, and it's been a very sewing machine/ paintbrush/ dyebath intensive process. Awesome. Plus, the room is bright pink so you know it's going to be good.

I've had the dresser and end table drawer things since my parents bought me this furniture set for my first apartment in college. There is a matching twin bed that's waiting upstairs. We ended up buying the crib to match the other pieces, and I think it looks pretty good!

Here's the crib, obviously. It took forever to find bedding that fit in my idea, and I finally ended up just dying the bedskirt to be the vibrant shade of yellow I was looking for. I finally discovered Carousel Designs which has some pretty good stuff in bright colors (yay for not pastels!). The rug in this pic is actually two of those funky nobby bath mats that I am going to sew together, and I'm going to get another one for next to the changing table dresser. I figure they're pretty cheap and fun and easy to wash. The flower on the right wall is a present Sean gave me for our 9 (?) months of dating-anniversary. So cute! And finally, I just finished painting the goofy spatter painted flowers hanging above the crib. That was so fun to make! I think it turned out pretty well, too.

(edited to add a closeup of the painting)

Here are the curtains and glider and bookshelf. It's really hard to find bright purple curtains, as it turns out. At least ones that are tall enough to not look ridiculous. You can see in the next picture that we ended up getting ones that were really short, so I got an extra one and cut it up to sew to the bottoms of the curtains. You can't even really tell, which makes me really happy. And as you can see in the other picture, the glider used to be a pretty sage color that will look great in our living room once we outgrow the bright pink room, but for now I sewed a purple slipcover. I used flannel, which is soft but good heavens the cat hair. I'd originally intended to keep the cats off, of course, but um, clearly that is going well. It's their new favorite spot. I'm also pretty impressed with how many books area already on the shelf. I saved a lot of them from when I was little. :)

Curtains before:

Chair before:

Here's the dresser/ changing table. There is no storage in this house so the closet in this room is already crammed full of other stuff so this dresser is really, really useful. And the painting in this picture was made by my brother! Yay!

31 weeks

2011-04-23T13:08:00.001-05:00

I really have 2 more months? I don't think my clothes are up for that challenge. Baby's doing great though.

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Projects: Baby sweater

2011-04-22T22:26:00.000-05:00

So, I've been super busy nesting or whatever. For example, awhile ago I turned this BRIGHT PINK SPARKLY fiber into BRIGHT PINK SPARKLY yarn. Then I turned the yarn into a BRIGHT PINK SPARKLY February baby sweater. Complete with matching buttons. Oh yes, exactly what a summer Arkansas baby needs.

Crazy Hippie

2011-04-05T16:30:00.002-05:00

After last week's excitement, my appointment with the midwives today was the best birthday present ever.

Ranty McRanterson

2011-03-29T17:22:00.000-05:00

My OB sends out surveys after every visit. Here's what I wrote about the one for today:

"A pregnant woman should not have to wait in a waiting room for two hours with no food or water prior to taking a glucose test before even being seen by anyone. By the time I finally got around to the test I ended up passing out, which I doubt would have happened if I had been seen in a reasonable amount of time.

"When, after an hour of waiting (the sign posted at the desk says to check with them if you have been waiting for longer than 15 minutes), I politely asked the staff at the front desk if I would be seen soon, I was rather harshly informed that "if you signed in, we know you're here."

"Some of the nursing staff were at least kind enough to give me water and parts of their own lunch so I would be well enough to drive home.

"I am switching providers."

Gah. Plus I've already gained 27 lbs. And I still have 12.5 weeks to go.

25 weeks

2011-03-14T11:54:00.001-05:00

Here's me at 25 ish weeks.

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I am freaking productive today

2011-02-08T16:45:00.000-06:00

Here is a list of things I do most days:
* Wake up by noon.
* Sit on the couch in my pajamas playing on the internet.

Here is a list of things I have done today:
* Woke up at 8.
* Got dressed.
* Went to the library to return books.
* Went to the post office to mail stuff.
* Went to the grocery store to stock up in case it snows.
* Called and made a doctor appointment.
* Cleaned out the fridge.
* Went to Old Navy and got new clothes for me and the baby.
* Went to the yarn store and used the gift certificate my mom gave me for Christmas.
* Went to Starbucks.
* Called and cancelled an order that supposedly shipped 2 months ago that I haven't received yet.
* Ate homemade French Onion Soup that I made last night after I mopped and vacuumed the floor. O_o
* Found and ordered a crib that coordinates with our other furniture.
* Found possible flights for a vacation to Phoenix in a couple months.

Later today I plan on making some salmon with lemon caper sauce. And I'll either go to yoga or spin some pink yarn or start knitting some socks. Probably the spinning.

It's craziness around here today!

20 weeks

2011-02-07T12:55:00.004-06:00

This week I did lots and lots of spinning, and finished making 2-ply silk yarn I've had on the wheel since I lived in Iowa. It's 254 yds and 32g which I think is pretty good, or something. It's really shiny!

It's been snowing a lot sort of. I made a snowman to show Lindsey before she left for Mexico. The snow covered the snowman up to his midsection by the end of the day, but it melted the next day. Today I woke up at 7:45 and was surprised to see that the whole world was white, but I went back to sleep and by the time I woke up again it was almost completely gone.

Oh yeah, I'm getting really, really huge. My clothes don't fit. :( On the plus side, everything looked good at the doctor this week. Ooh, and we probably have a name. We're not gonna tell you till she's born though.

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19 weeks!

2011-01-30T18:18:00.001-06:00

She's moving around a little bit now. It feels really, really weird.

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Everyone's having girls

2011-01-21T16:26:00.003-06:00

Yay ultrasounds! Everyone I know who is pregnant is having a girl, including me! Now I guess we have to think of girl names...

That's what I looked like a week ago, at 17 weeks. I can't believe I'm almost halfway there.

I made molten chocolate cake. I'm pretty much crazy hungry all the time, and molten chocolate cake is yummy. Win!

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tummy tum tum

2011-01-09T14:49:00.001-06:00

Yay maternity clothes! They are the comfiest things ever. Here is me at 16 weeks.

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Plants

2010-07-14T13:08:00.000-05:00

I don't really have a garden this year. I was so excited to finally live in a place with a backyard so I tried to go outside one of the first days I lived in Arkansas and measure for a raised bed garden, but after 2 minutes I had been bitten by so many mosquitoes I literally had trouble breathing (which sucked). So I took some Zyrtec (which totally works for making mosquito bites itch less, in case you are in a similar situation) and scrapped that idea.

However, in our (not at all spiteful) quest to take everything from our Iowa house (like cf lightbulbs from every socket, and the fancy lightswitches that Sean had installed), I took the planters that had a couple seeds in them and plopped them in the new backyard. When looking at them through the back window, they seem to still be alive. In the foreground are a couple bell pepper plants, and in the back is a lettuce plant that I actually have no intention of eating. I'm pretty sure by this point it would taste terrible. But since it's pretty much all I am growing I love it just the same.

Except for the occasionally absurd wind (maybe you can see how the bigger pepper plant sort of has a zig-zag in it, from being blown over at one point), the southern rain storms and heat make it so I haven't had to water them or tend them in the slightest. Which is great, since I don't go in the backyard. There are fireants out there, dude.

Emo

2010-07-13T21:35:00.000-05:00

I miss my friends. And my music, which was on my computer that died.

Here is a kitten picture.

Um, I found a kitten

2010-03-27T15:49:00.002-05:00

Only problem is, I'm in Little Rock for the weekend, and I can't really take him on the airplane.

More pictures and a tank top.

2010-03-18T16:03:00.004-05:00

So pretty!

So I think this is what a shawl is for...

Andrea is having me make a lacy tank top, and I love it so far!

Guess What?

2010-03-18T09:51:00.005-05:00

I finished my shawl. It's huge. And awesome.

Here it is pre-blocking. Impressive stuff, no?

Maybe a bath will help?

336 pins later...

With the book again to show how amazing blocking is at making things bigger.

Look! Look how pretty! :D

That's a king size bed. This thing is huge.

I didn't finish by the end of the Olympics, but I am darn proud of myself anyway. I want some real in-the-wild-not-pinned-to-my-bed pictures, but I was too excited to post these pics and didn't want to unpin it too early, so there ya go.

So... does anyone know what you are supposed to do with a shawl after you finish making it? Anyone? Bueller?

Slippers, Puppy hat

2010-03-12T09:29:00.001-06:00

For something that took like 2 hours to knit, these slippers are really taking forever to finish. They're like, half dry, so I sewed the strap on, and even made it functional because it tightens up the rather loose toe part. So yay. Now all I have to do is wait till they're all the way dry to puff paint the bottoms. I can't decide if I like them.

My karate instructor has been bugging me to make a hat for his dog for like, 2 years. So now that the dog has some puppies, I made a prototype for a puppy. It fits Calvin, ear-holes and all, so hopefully a puppy is the same size as a Calvin.

Arkansas slippers and some knitting surgery

2010-03-11T14:52:00.007-06:00

I am making some French Press Slippers! When I went to visit Arkansas to see if it would be a good place to live (apparently I thought it would, and we decided to move there in a couple months), I went to a yarn store and found this yarn on sale and decided that these slippers would be a good pattern to use it on. Thus, they are my Arkansas slippers.

Here is them, pre-felting (with a helpful cat for size comparison).

Here they are after two go-rounds in the front load washing machine. UGH! They look awful! That lump on the back! I should have figured out how to sew them in order to not make that lump, and they were huge. I pouted all night, then decided to take drastic measures.

Chop chop chop! I went with the scissors. This step was terrifying. I cut the whole lump off. Slipper lumpectomy.

Then I sewed them up the back! I even got a bit cocky with my scissors and trimmed any weird lumpy parts around the edges, too. (The one on the left is still in pre-op, the right one is all stitched up.)

I decided to hand-felt them the rest of the way to seal up the new heel seam and try to shrink them a bit and get rid of the dreadful lumpiness. Then I went to search for some buttons. They're not done yet since they are still drying and I haven't sewed on the straps. I can't decide which way I like the button: with the little leaves or plain. What do you think?

I ran out of yarn :(

2010-03-09T15:06:00.002-06:00

First, a couple days ago, all my stitches came off my needle. Luckily it was on a row I had added a lifeline to so it wasn't too hard to fix, but I definitely didn't breathe for like, a whole minute.

But look. I ran out of yarn. 3 rounds from the end. I'm gonna go cry now.

Here are my cats on a box (as predicted) to cheer me up.

I'm still knitting this thing.

2010-03-09T07:32:00.003-06:00

Yeah, so here's how far I was last week at the end of the Olympics:

Here's what it looked like at some point...

I've only got 5 rows left. I think I'm going to finish today. Squee!!

Days 10-16

2010-02-28T09:02:00.004-06:00

Ok. One day left. I'm about 50% done. This oughta be interesting. :) I'd fix the formatting of these pictures, but I'd really rather be knitting.

So... I made a quilt :)

2010-02-22T14:01:00.005-06:00

Yeah. I started making a quilt way back in the day. I just finished it. Like, right now. I needed to get the thing off my kitchen table since it's been there for weeks and I need to cleeeeeeean. Ok, it's not as done as I hoped I would make it... I didn't quilt inside the t-shirt parts, so they will probably fall apart with much use and I do eventually want to make them pretty with quilting, but for now, it's done done done.

This was motivated by the fact that my sewing machine seemed to miraculously be working again, as I discovered when I decided I needed to make a case for a new (to me!) bou for karate (ok, kobudo). It's sort of become my thing to make all my weapons have pretty cases. Any ideas for a tonfa case?

It's so pretty! I used the leftover fabric for a pincushion.

Day 8, 9, 10

2010-02-22T09:27:00.002-06:00

I got quite a bit done this weekend, yay! I wasn't feeling well enough to go to karate on Saturday, so I stayed home and knit for pretty much the entire day. That was pretty good for catching up. On Sunday I went skiing (which was wicked awesome) for most of the day, but still managed to get a lot of knitting done when I got home. I'm finally on row 81! (Where I should have been last Tuesday, but ohhs wells.)

It's so pretty :)

Day 6, Day 7

2010-02-19T14:42:00.002-06:00

So here's two more days of knitting. Or not knitting, it looks like. I was all excited when I saw the big sections without any lacey holes because I thought it would be easy, but it turns out that instead of just knitting, it's ribbed. But not just ribbed, Ktbl ribs. So it's taking forever. Oh well. I'm only like, 8 days behind. =P

Day 4, Day 5

2010-02-17T16:15:00.005-06:00

My intarnetz were totally clogged all day yesterday, so I feel like I got a lot of knitting done, but looking at the pictures it doesn't really seem to be going very fast:

Day 4:

Day 5:

So I made a spreadsheet of how much I need to get done every day (if I knit the same amount every day) to be on track to finish by the 28th.

I did this by figuring that since there are 154 rounds to be knit and the area of a circle is πr^2, the area of the finished beast will be π(154)^2. Then I figured that every day I should knit 1/17th of the area of the circle, so the number of rounds to be finished with on a given day is the square root of the day number over 17, times 154^2. Yeah.

Date Round to finish
12-Feb 37
13-Feb 53
14-Feb 65
15-Feb 75
16-Feb 84
17-Feb 91
18-Feb 99
19-Feb 106
20-Feb 112
21-Feb 118
22-Feb 124
23-Feb 129
24-Feb 135
25-Feb 140
26-Feb 145
27-Feb 149
28-Feb 154

It's currently Feb 16. I am currently on round 52. Damn. Maybe I should spend less time writing spreadsheets and blog entries and more time knitting.

Day 3

2010-02-15T08:06:00.003-06:00

Oh yes, another picture that's almost identical to yesterday! Woot! (In my defense, I had to go shopping for new socks for Valentine's Day. Who has time for knitting when it's new-socks-on-Valentine's Day-day???)

At least now I can start to see how cool the pattern is looking. Also note my rather obsessive use of lifelines... Hopefully when I totally screw it up (and you know I will at some point) these things will come in handy.

Not looking forward to the 1200ish stitches that await me in the last rows of this thing.

Ravelympics Day 2

2010-02-14T09:35:00.003-06:00

It's getting bigger! I love the beginning of a giant circle, because it actually gets bigger when I work on it! We'll see next week how I feel about each row being 500 or so stitches. So pretty!

Epic Circle of Doom and Lace

2010-02-13T08:30:00.003-06:00

It's the Ravelympics! I love watching the Olympics and I love knitting, so I figured I may as well take the amazingtastic yarn that Andrea gave me (because she is the coolest) and make an Epic Circle of Doom and Lace. Also known as a Rona Lace Shawl (non-rav link).

And, as a great bonus, I think I might blog about it. Because why not?

So here you go, ECoD&L Day 1:

Impressive stuff, eh?

Early Christmas Present

2009-11-23T13:40:00.000-06:00

I made a sai cactus

2009-10-17T18:32:00.005-05:00

To hold my sai. It's made of handspun yarn, and it's awesome.

I went on a cupcake-making binge

2009-10-17T18:27:00.004-05:00

Cupcakes!

Pretty pictures!

2009-06-25T11:40:00.005-05:00

I took this picture of the sunset ton Tuesday, in the midst of some crazy thunderstorms/tornado warnings. It's pouring down rain in the picture, but the sky was just amazing. Another interesting aspect of the picture is the house they are building in my backyard. That thing is going up pretty fast! You can also sort of see my veggies in their rubbermaid containers on the deck.

I spent this past weekend spinning up the tussah silk fiber from my last post. I managed to get about 250 yards of 2-ply laceweight out of 37 grams, and although it's pretty underspun, I think I'm really getting better at making consistently thin singles. I also learned to spin from the fold, which is apparently a good thing to know. Shrug. Perhaps I will turn it into some sort of lacy scarf/cowl/shawl.

Here are some pictures of my cats being their cute little selves. Calvin loves to go out on the deck, even when it's almost 100º outside, and he's discovered that hiding in the bean plants is a good way to stay cool. Mainly because it's so darn cute that I wait awhile to kick him out of there.

Cuddle Duds loves being in boxes, and is helping guard the mail basket.

New yarn 'n things

2009-06-19T09:48:00.003-05:00

I bought myself some merino/bamboo fiber as a graduation present to myself, and I finally got around to spinning it this week! The colorway was called Antique Rose Petals and I think that is quite fitting.
In case anyone's reading who cares about these things, from my 3 ounces of fiber I got 208 yards of a slightly underspun 2-ply. Not sure what I'll make out of it. I was thinking socks, since it's superwash (yay!) but I don't think it's tightly spun enough to last very long as socks. I don't want to add more spin either, since it's impressively well balanced right now. Maybe it will be a hat (foliage?) or maybe I'll just knit socks tightly and wear them anyway.

Here's how the fiber started out.

Here are the singles before plying.

And here is the silk fiber I bought nearly the instant I finished spinning that purple stuff! I am spinning it really thin, so it's taking for.ev.er. but it's so shiny and soft!

I've also been gardening, despite the help of a rather pesky gnome. I've been eating fresh salads for awhile now, and the beans are nearly ready, too! It's a bit harder to tell with the onions and carrots, but a few might be nearing edible stage, I think, possibly...

Swallowtail shawl

2009-05-14T16:54:00.002-05:00

I made a Swallowtail shawl! Hooray for not having a job and having lots of time to knit!

Here it is before blocking. Holy cow, blocking makes it so different!

I've been baking!!!

2009-05-08T11:52:00.002-05:00

Look! I made a Domo Kun cake for my friend's birthday!

And I made some cupcakes on a stick! Like from Bakerella.

I've been knitting too (O_o) but more on that later...

Look! I'm knitting!

2009-02-08T23:31:00.002-06:00

It's gonna be a mitten! That flips open to be fingerless gloves! Eventually! The pattern is based on the Leyburn socks pattern.

Snow, hat!

2008-12-03T13:13:00.003-06:00

Hi! It started snowing again, so I started knitting again. I decided I needed a slouchy hat, because everyone I saw when I went to a conference in Philadelphia was wearing a slouchy hat, so I made one! Here it is!

I'm not completely convinced that it doesn't make me look like Mario, but I love it anyway, and it's the first thing I've knit in AGES! It feels good to knit again. I already cast on for a matching scarf. Well, the hat was made using Lamb's Pride (and I had to modify the pattern a bit for that sub) that I frogged from the Fake Isle hat I started awhile back, and the scarf will be out of some really really skinny yarn. I don't anticipate the scarf ever actually getting finished....

Here's the pattern for the hat, if anyone is interested: Tam Pattern

Turtle Power!

2008-11-03T13:03:00.002-06:00

So, I read other people's blogs and think to myself..... "maybe someday I will update my blog!" Well, today is that day!

Here is a picture of some karate friends and me in our rockin' Halloween costumes! They were so fun to make. We sewed pillowcases into shell shapes and drew shell patterns for the back. We painted cardboard for the front shells. The mismatched green sweats were very comfy and I felt very smug in the face of all the other "slutty-whoever" girls dressed up downtown. Go us!

Since they are my favorite, here is a picture of the kitties and cute and cuddly on the couch. This never happens. Usually Calvin is trying to kill Cuddle Duds.

Meet Calvin!

2008-08-30T22:28:00.003-05:00

Here's a new kitten I got today! His (well, I'm not quite positive it's a male, but either way) name is Calvin. We chose that name because the other cat is Cuddle Duds, like the underwear brand, so we thought it would be funny to continue giving the cats underwear names. If it was a girl, it might have been Victoria, for Victoria's Secret, for example. We had some fun vetoing "Fruit of the Loom" and "Hanes" and settled on Calvin Klein. Plus, he's orange like Hobbes, so Calvin's a good name for him.

Um... my garden is going pretty well in some areas (like the jalapenos) and not so great in others. Like corn.

This is the one ear that grew on the 2 stalks I had. The main problem, I am guessing, is that the one morning I went to look at the plants and saw that there was pollen all over the stalk, there was a huge thunderstorm an hour later and it all washed away. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Can you get kicked out of Iowa for failing at corn?

I should point out that I made some fabulous spaghetti sauce out of the tomatoes, basil and oregano I had growing, so I pretty much love the garden.

Yes, I realize this doesn't count as a real post.

2008-08-05T11:32:00.001-05:00

Here is a picture of Radiohead playing at Lollapalooza, for your viewing pleasure!

It's been a month!

2008-07-16T11:05:00.003-05:00

I was gonna upload a bunch of pictures, but it won't let me, so meh.

Sandbagging pictures

2008-06-15T17:10:00.004-05:00

I've been internetless since last week sometime, so I am sitting at a coffee shop in Coralville.
I took a break from sandbagging on Friday to put bandaids on my bleeding fingers and took these pictures.

More floods

2008-06-11T13:05:00.003-05:00

Some of these pictures are really quite pretty. I am curious what the Coralville Dam looks like now that the water is over the spillway. I imagine it's not great.

Floods

2008-06-10T09:55:00.001-05:00

Yep, floods.

Thunderstorms

2008-06-05T10:28:00.003-05:00

I would think that thunderstorms are terribly exciting and fun, if it weren't for the following things:

- They are always way early in the morning when I am trying to sleep. I got woken up by stormy craziness at 4:30 this morning and never managed to go back to sleep. The storm stopped literally two minutes before my alarm went off at 6 this morning. Come on, at least be later in the day when I can enjoy it, or be at night so I can just sleep in later to make up for lost sleep.

- There is a very real chance that any of these storms can turn into a tornado. I moved here a few months after a tornado tore half the city apart two years ago, and I saw how damaged all the buildings and houses were. That's just scary. It doesn't help to have a weather radio going off like crazy announcing "tornado watch in effect for the next 4 hours!" or whatever. I don't think I would freak out so much if it was just like, "Emily, there's a tornado about to hit your house, go to the basement now."

- I actually own my home. That means when stuff breaks, I have to fix it, and pay for it, which sucks. I've already gotten a rip in a window screen, chips in the tile on the table and two broken planters from storms. We've taken steps to try to prevent more outdoor furniture casualties, but I suspect we haven't seen the end of the destruction.

- Lightning's gotta strike somewhere. Last year, it hit my friend's house and like, blew up their tv. I like my tv. It has shows like House and The Office and Ace of Cakes. I don't want it to be blown up. I don't want anything else to be blown up by lightning either.

Storms can be pretty and exciting, but mostly they are loud and scary and make floods that make it hard to get to work, and I don't like them.

I guess, though, that it's our fault for being bad to the environment. You'd think this would motivate me to do good things like riding my bike to work. I might even think about it if it weren't raining so darn hard. Augh.

Here's a picture of lightning from last summer for you.

Three posts in a day so I don't have to say anything for a long time

2008-06-01T23:12:00.006-05:00

I got the cat a leash. Now at least when he sits at the door very loudly saying vowels ("eeeeiiiaaoooouuuuuu," says the cat) I can be like, ok, get your silly little harness on and we can go outside. I gotta tell you, though, I am not especially looking forward to picking fleas out of all of this fur insanity. Is this not the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen?

Ok, I said in the last post that the cookbook I used for the cobbler was my favoritest ever, but that's not true. It's amazing, but this one is better.

Oh yeah, I also made a cobbler and it was fantastic

2008-06-01T14:11:00.003-05:00

Chelsea made a cobbler and I was jealous and I also had strawberries in the fridge so I whipped out my favoritest cookbook and made a cobbler. Well, I didn't have enough strawberries, but I found some frozen mixed berries in the freezer so I threw those in, too.

I think the use of the π plate helps add to the deliciousness.

Updates on things

2008-06-01T13:42:00.005-05:00

So, while people were getting tornadoed up north aways, our outdoor furniture was blowing around and breaking stuff. We'd just gotten back from seeing Indiana Jones (!) and it was supposed to be stormy so we looked outside and literally like 2 seconds later our entire metal and tile (ie, not especially lightweight) furniture set took off from the place I am standing to take this picture and landed on the other side of the deck where the plants are.

Here's the damage:

I got another plastic bin and just set the broken one inside, but I haven't done anything about the terra cotta one with lavender in it. Shrug. I also moved the deck around so that the table is over on that side permanently and the plants and the plants are on the opposite side.

Speaking of plants, here are some pictures:

Now, here's some knitting:

These arm warmers look completely ridiculous and long and skinny on the needles, but they are totally comfy cozy when I put them on.

Pretty little seedlings

2008-05-20T12:18:00.008-05:00

Corn

Peas

Beans

Carrots

Lettuce

Marigolds

Mystery peppers

Basil

Oregano

Cilantro

Chives

Tomatoes

Grape hyacinth

Rosemary and lavender

Pretty New Yarn

2008-05-19T23:03:00.003-05:00

I ordered this batt from Butterfly Girl Designs and spun it up this weekend. The colorway is called Blueberry Lime Surprise and it's 50% merino, 50% bamboo and a bit of sparkly angelina for good measure. It's so soft and dreamy! I feel like it should be called mermaid hair or something.

I am starting to make some arm warmers with it, because it's about the only thing I could think of that I might possibly wear anytime in the next several months.

I went to the sock club at Crazy Girl Yarn and bought some Noro Kureyon sock yarn!!! It's so pretty! (scratchy, sure, but so, so pretty!) I can't wait to make something with it!

Unknown sprout and lightbulbs

2008-05-06T09:55:00.003-05:00

Ok, so here is the unknown sprout today.

I know it's not basil, lettuce, oregano, cilantro, marigolds, chives, tomatoes, carrots.... the only thing it can be are beans or peppers. I really really hope it's peppers. Or something I didn't plant, like pineapple.
I also have lots of new sprouts this morning that I didn't have yesterday morning. Like in one place I have about a thousand lettuce sprouts. I guess I got a little seed happy. Oops! I also have a ton of marigold sprouts, which is exciting because those are ones that didn't sprout indoors. It's also how I know the unknown sprout isn't marigolds.

So, when we replaced all the lightbulbs in our house with compact fluorescents, Sean put all the old lightbulbs in a vase on an end table in the hallway. I thought it was sort of silly and didn't do anything about it. After a bit of a lightbulb disaster on Saturday, though, I got a bit annoyed about the lightbulb vase and thought it was really dumb and who in their right mind has a vase full of light bulbs?

Meta Home in Old Capital Mall, that's who. We saw this display in the window last night, and it cracked me up enough to take a picture of it.
The lightbulb vase stays.

Things that grow

2008-05-05T10:11:00.007-05:00

I haven't really been knitting, just spinning more of the green yarn. I think I will use the green yarn to make the Urban Aran Cardigan. I also decided what I think i want to do with the alpaca! I think I will make it a 2 ply yarn and make the Apres Surf Hoodie from the new Interweave Knits! I will probably dye it a really pale shade of something using food coloring or kool-aid. Such ambition I have, considering the only thing I have knit in months is a pair of socks.

Instead of knitting I have been watching things grow! Here are some tulips that I was so excited to bloom!

Only it turns out they are actually poppies! Pretty!

(edit: I was kind of nervous posting that because figured someone would say they aren't poppies and make it obvious that I have no idea about flowers. Here is a handy hint though: don't google images of poppies. Apparently there are a lot of naked people named Poppy. Fyi.)

Anyway, here are some blue flowers that are in the same little area of our patio as the red flowers.

Since it's actually letting me upload pictures (knock on wood) I think I'll add some more pictures of dirt with teeny bits of green in it.
Here are my tomato plants! They are the only plants big enough to be mildly interesting. To me, I mean.

This particular pile of dirt is also fascinating to me, because one of the random unidentified dirt clods that fell into the sink is sprouting! See! The tiny thing down in the lower left corner! Please tell me you can see it. (Yes, I realize that you can't see it. I am ok with that, because I know it's there.) A special bonus prize will go to the first person who can correctly identify what the sprout is turning into. Your choices are: lettuce, beans, marigolds, bell peppers, jalapenos or habaneros. Or maybe basil. Or oregano. I don't think it's either of those last two, though.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't include a picture of the cat, so here he is helping garden by hiding in the barbeque cover.

I made a garden!

2008-04-28T15:07:00.011-05:00

I made a garden!!! In plastic tubs!! Too bad it's going to be frosty tonight and the whole garden is going to die. That's a bit lame.

My gardening methods are very precise. I've been growing seeds inside for like a month, and only about half of the seeds I planted ended up actually sprouting. At one point the little plastic container holding the seedlings blew off the window sill when the window was left open in a thunderstorm and all the seedlings and unsprouted dirt clods fell into the sink. I have no idea which unsprouted dirt clod was which, so when I planted the seedlings, I just buried the unsprouted dirt clods in the plastic tub in the corner, in the hope that it's just taking a little longer than expected for whatever is in there to grow. I labeled the tub in the corner "habaneros and jalapenos." Might be marigolds though. Shrug. I also poured the entire seed pack of carrots in a couple of very close together rows in one tub. I love carrots. I am hoping they all grow together into a very very wide mega carrot. This is going to be the best garden ever! Here's a picture of my half-stained deck, some plastic tubs of dirt and a barbeque (grill, to you midwesterners).

Awhile ago I mentioned that I had made a light box for taking pictures that look like hats are suspended in midair and whatnot. To make it, I cut three sides and the top out of a cardboard box, taped some tracing paper over the cutouts, put a long piece of white poster board along the back and bottom and put it next to a window and a desk lamp. I think the resulting pictures are pretty good, and kitty thinks the resulting box is a fantastic place to hang out.

Therefore, I figured it would be a good idea to take some pictures of him. They make me giggle, so you have to look at them, too.

Green Yarn

2008-04-24T10:41:00.003-05:00

Here's some yarn I made! It even looks like yarn, huh?

I am trying to decide what I want to do with it. I really want to spin enough yarn to make an Urban Aran Cardigan or something similar. I've got 2 lbs of this green wool, and 1.5 lbs of alpaca, and I can't really decide if I want to make enough yarn to make a sweater out of both of them, or just use the wool to practice spinning. I am wavering between thinking that the green would make a really good color for a sweater and thinking that it would also be really goo wool to learn different spinning techniques with. I am definitely going to make enough yarn for a sweater with the alpaca. I am just not sure what kind of yarn I am going to make with it. Fat yarn? Thin yarn? Lots of plies yarn? Bumpy core spun yarn (like lion brand homestyle)? So this yarn is just sitting around not being used, and so is the spinning wheel until I make up my mind.

Until then, I am working on my Lizard Ridge again. Who knew that I would actually work on one of my random UFO's? Craziness.

Earthquake

2008-04-18T05:02:00.001-05:00

Um, am I still in California or what? Hooray for being awake at 4:30 because the whole world is shaking. Come on now, wait for daytime so I can enjoy it.

Spring and spinning wheels!

2008-04-13T15:51:00.004-05:00

Look! It's springtime! Granted, there is snow on the flower, but whatever.

Here's my spinning wheel! I've had it for a couple of weeks now and I love love love it! It's pretty, too!

It came with 2 lbs of green wool, so I have lots and lots to work with. Here's some green yarn I made and I plied together. It was just practice, though. I've gotten lots better since this.

My mom came to visit last week and for my birthday she gave me a ton of alpaca fiber!! It's so soft and wonderful!

Kitty likes it too. He thinks that it's a new friend.

Boyfriend Socks

2008-03-21T11:10:00.005-05:00

Is it weird that I am making myself boyfriend socks?

This was just too darn cute not to take a picture of. Kitty never ever sits on laps unless you are physically holding him there and brushing him. This is the closest he's ever come to cuddling on my lap. He was just so interested in the socks that he rested his fuzzy little head on my leg and watched (well, mostly he wanted to eat the needle whenever it came near him). It was very hard to make myself get up and come to school today because he was being so adorable.

Plus I learned how to do a figure-eight cast on. Very exciting.

I decided I am going to try to take better pictures of things, so I made a light tent kind of thing out of a cardboard box, a piece of poster board and some tracing paper. I'll take a picture of it at some point, but anyway, I tried taking a few pictures using it. I don't really have any decent lamps, so I can't really get a good picture yet, but here is the yarn I am using to make these boyfriend socks.

Also I can make hats fly. Neat.

Wooohooooooo I finished my Pomatomus socks!!!!

2008-03-20T11:53:00.003-05:00

I love them so much. I used size 0 needles instead of 2's, so they are nice and snug (I have small feet). For some reason I got really sick of making these for a few weeks. This week though, it's spring break so the buses only come every 15 minutes and there are not very many people on them so I am guaranteed some quality waiting-for-the-bus-in-the-car time, as well as a seat on the bus so knitting on my commute is actually an option. Once I actually had a decent chance to work on them, I got far enough along that I could almost see the end and I got really fast once I got near the toes. Then the actual toe part is just stockinette, which is about a zillion times faster than the lacy pattern so I finished most of that last night and the rest this morning. This is one of my favorite projects I've ever made. Sad, huh?

(I should mention that the composition of the first picture was inspired by pictures of socks taken by photographer Jessica Tjok. Mine is obviously way crappier, but I want to give credit where it's due.)

Nothing

2008-03-17T15:10:00.003-05:00

Um, I suppose if you have a blog, you should update it sometimes, and I haven't done that lately, so today is the day! Woo!

Here is a picture of some yarn that I Navajo plied. It's sort of like crocheting with your fingers while the yarn is spinning. Weird. What can I do with 15 yards of this???

Fae Ridge Farm

2008-03-03T16:45:00.003-06:00

Andrea and I went to Fae Ridge Farm this weekend, and it was a ton of fun! There were very cool animals there. The ducks were hilarious and the walked in a line and they were white and orange and pretty. The merino goats (ETA there's no such thing. They are sheep. Shrug.) had curly bangs that were cute in that 3-year-old-girl-with-ringlets sort of way, and I loved them and I wanted them to be my friends.

Also, there was a lot of neat yarn and fiber. I liked the corn yarn the best. Oh, interesting. I was going to find a link to some information about corn yarn for you, but all the links I found are about how it's made with GMO corn and how this is some sort of tragedy. Well, at any rate, the yarn was fantastically soft and wonderful, and the people at the store said it was like cotton only better, softer and very durable. Here's a wikipedia article about Ingeo, the corn fiber, if you are interested.

I ordered a spinning wheel! I got a Lendrum DT from Woodland Woolworks (which I found out later is in Oregon, neat!). It's out of stock for a few weeks though, so I have to wait (and wait, and wait.....).

In the meantime, I learned how to Navajo Ply with my spindle! I don't have any pictures yet, but I have 15 yards of pretty decent 3 ply yarn now. What on earth can I make with 15 yards?

Bowl Disaster (AKA The Breakfast of Champions)

2008-02-25T13:15:00.008-06:00

So, lately this is what I've been eating for breakfast. It is delicious, and mostly good for you. It has protein, omega-3, fiber, good fats and yumminess all at once. Its the only thing that I've eaten for breakfast lately that keeps me from getting hungry before 11 am.

It is completely impossible to get out of a bowl without a good scrubbing. The dishwasher can't handle it. It also looks a little gross. Sean gets very upset when I leave "bowl disaster" in the sink. It's a pretty big joke around here. Here's how to have your very own bowl disaster!:

Start with a bowl.

Add some chocolate chips. The amount added depends on how bad of a mood you are in.

Add a lot of oatmeal (Old-fashioned, not instant. Steel cut is probably better, but who has that?)

Add a couple spoonfuls of flax seed. This is the secret weapon.

Add a big ol' scoop of peanut butter. The natural kind with just peanuts and salt. None of that processed partially hydrogenated crap.

Microwave for 30 seconds. Stir everything together. Eat it. Yummy.

Anyway, here are some pictures of mountains from my trip to Oregon last weekend. It was sunny and in the 60º's and beautiful! The pointy mountain is Mt. Hood. The roundish mountain is Mt. St. Helens.

Oh yeah, I've been knitting, too. The airplane ride helped with this a lot. Here are some socks! I keep getting messed up on the pattern and having to reknit parts of them. This means that there are some places with loose stitches, but I think it will be ok. It seems like I still have a million miles left to knit till I get to the toes. At least the foot part is half stockinette. Then again, the pattern was way easier to follow on the leg. It's all weird for the foot. Ah well. I am excited to have some knit socks that I love! Even if I sort of hate them.

Spinning wheel

2008-02-22T14:02:00.002-06:00

I am going to get a spinning wheel. It's going to be a birthday present, because el husband is building himself a computer, and the only reasonable way to make an unjustifiably large expense go away is to create another one. My birthday's not for another month and a half, but this winter is making me more and more miserable by the hour and looking for a spinning wheel is making me happy.

I am trying to decide between the Original Lendrum and the Louet Victoria. Apparently I have to choose between single and double treadle.

Now, I personally know the three people who read this blog and I have never heard any of them mention anything about spinning, so I am not actually expecting any feedback. However, I have never used a spinning wheel before, so if anyone reading this is one of the creepy people who always seems to read blogs without ever leaving comments or anything (I am this person for lots of blogs...) and knows a lot about spinning wheels, this is the time to speak up.

Yes, I realize that Fae Ridge Farms has spinning classes and wheels and stuff, but by the time I have both the courage to call and the time to drive over there to take a class, it will be a very long time from now and I could have figured it out on my own by then.

Fun with Etsy

2008-02-13T13:14:00.001-06:00

Now THIS is what all shopping should be like.

Snow Snow Snow Snow Hat Snow

2008-02-07T13:55:00.001-06:00

That's the 8" of snow from Super Bowl Sunday, out on our deck. Yesterday, we thought it would be fun to see how much more snow we could get out there:

Apparently this is the worst winter in lots of years around here. I agree. This weather sucks. Mega hardcore sucks. I twitch every time I see another snowflake. Briony seems to think that it would be worse if it were 32ºF and rainy. I am pretty skeptical of this claim. On the plus side, once the blasted snow finally stops it's kind of pretty outside. Also on the plus side, we are DEFINITELY getting our money's worth out of our homeowner's association this winter, since they come by practically every day to clear our driveway and walkway.

Also on the plus side, they cancelled classes yesterday, for the second time this year! Apparently they never cancel classes. The last time they did before this year was when a tornado went right over the top of campus. I knew it was going to be bad yesterday when I got out of bed at 7:30 and I couldn't tell where my yard ended and the street began.

Staying home in my jammies all day was pretty fantastic. I made an Unoriginal Hat! I also managed to finish one of my Craft-a-Thon design contest projects!

In real life, the hat is much cooler than it looks in the picture. It's dark black, and despite the fact that I used natural light on a cloudy day, the picture still overexposed. Shoot. I love the hat though. I have too many brightly colored things. I think this will calm things down a bit, wardrobe-wise.

I am excited for the Craft-a-Thon tomorrow! I hope lots of people come and make things for the preemies! We have worked so hard to put it together, and it's going to be very interesting to see how it goes. I am also excited, because it will be a good excuse to buy some knitting books without feeling guilty. After all, it's for the babies! I can't wait to see what people have made for the design contest!

Snow Snow Snow Snow Cat Snow

2008-02-04T16:17:00.000-06:00

What you can't tell from this picture is that it's POURING down snow and Cuddle Duds is completely covered in it. Plus he's eating it.

Adorable little toe prints.

There's the view off my deck. There are about 8" of snow.

FEMA for Socks

2008-01-25T11:21:00.000-06:00

I fixed the sock!!! And I didn't even have to frog it!!! Frogging most likely would have been easier, but if I had ripped it out I definitely would not have had the motivation to make it back up again, so I went with the picking up the stitches approach. It was actually not nearly as bad as I thought it would be!

In case you've never reknit just a section of a knit piece before, here is a step-by-step explanation of how to do it.

Step 1) Shown yesterday: Insert a double pointed needle into the last "good" row where you have identifiable stitches. Just pick up the stitches you are going to be reworking.

Step 2) Shown yesterday: Drop the stitches from the top working needle. Make sure that all these stitches are going to be caught on the bottom holder needle. This is terrifying!

Step 3) Look closely at the ladders you now have in your knitting. Find the one that makes up the row above the stitches on the holder needle. This will be the working yarn for your next row.

Step 4) Now you just pretend now that you are knitting like normal, with this ladder yarn as the working yarn. I have no idea how to do this step using the English method, but here's how to do it Continental. I suspect it is much easier this way.

Step 5) As you get to the end of the section you are working on, you will be working with a very teeny piece of yarn (hopefully your yarn piece will be the right length for the part you are knitting!). This can be tricky, but you'll figure out how to maneuver the little bit of yarn to be a stitch. I just pinch it and force it to go where it's told.

Step 6) Once you finish the first row, look to see if the ladder yarn you just knit with is evenly distributed across your new row of stitches. Is there some extra yarn that is making a giant space after this new row of knitting? I tried to even out the tension by slipping the stitches back and forth between two needles a couple times pulling and tugging the yarn a bit until all the stitches seemed to be about the same size. In these socks, the new row is still a bit loose (there is enough yarn for a whole extra stitch in each row since I ripped it out to remove an extra stitch) but it shouldn't be a big deal once I wash and block them. Because, again, there will be no frogging on these socks, darn it.

Step 7) Repeat steps 3-6 until you are way back to where you started, only with a perfectly fixed up piece of knitting!

Something to watch out for: be sure that the stitches you pick up in the first step are in the correct row (ie, don't pick up stitches and knit row two when the rest of the row is row three!). I made this mistake. I don't care. No one else will care, either. You can't even tell.

Mega Huge Sock Disaster

2008-01-24T13:23:00.000-06:00

I call this " Still Life with Sock Disaster."

"Emily," you might say, "how come one of your socks appears to be vomiting all over itself?" Well, my friends, I will tell you. I was one row short of finishing the first repeat of the chart, when I noticed this:

Now, to a normal person this looks just fine, right? Look again. The pattern in between the markers on the left is different than the pattern in between the markers on the right. Again, this isn't really a problem. I noticed this last night, and went to bed and slept quite well, thank you very much.

Except I woke up this morning in a panic about it! I don't want to go through life with one of my socks having a fish scale that is not like the others! Aaaaaaaahhhh!!!! There's no way I am frogging this baby (I say now) all the way to the beginning, because that would just be the end of this whole sock experiment that I am trying. (I hate knitting socks, but decided the other day that my new mission in life is to make Pomatomus socks. Very weird.)

So what do I do? I decided to just rip out this one pattern repeat!

Now, the astute observer will notice that there are 13 stitches on the red needle. This is a 12 stitch pattern repeat. I swear I counted them every single row and I always had 12, so I have no idea what's going on here. I even swear that there are 12 stitches on the needle up at the top where the working needle is. (Hmm... maybe this has something to do with the random k3tog I had to do at one point when the k2tog required by the pattern wouldn't work. Interesting.) "Oh well," I say with unwavering optimism, "it will all come out right in the end!"

Here's what it looks like now. I had to go to work today. Holy crap. I think I better go pray to the yarn gods. This is not going to end well. I just know it.

(=

On a different note, it's damn cold today. That's a -12.8ºF you see in the upper right corner. Like, below zero. Don't even get me started on the windchill. Yikes.

I finished something!

2008-01-22T16:26:00.000-06:00

It's My So Called Scarf!

Up close and personal

Guardian fluffball

Craft-a-Thon

2008-01-16T16:07:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah!! Everyone should go to the Craft-a-Thon! And everyone should design a pattern for the preemies!!!

We've been working so hard on this, and it's coming together really well! Wendy from Knit and Tonic is making us a pattern, Betty Christiansen, author of Knitting for Peace will be there, and there will be fantastic seminars, speakers, and tons and tons of crafting!

I can't wait!

Scarf, Hat

2008-01-16T16:00:00.000-06:00

I suppose I should update this thing once in awhile. Oh yeah, I just remembered that I tried to last week sometime but for some reason the picture uploader always crashes out before I can get anything posted. Well at any rate, here is a Fake-Isle Hat and a My So Called Scarf.

Skiing

2008-01-09T11:08:00.000-06:00

So I finally got back from Christmas in Oregon! On my trip I started both a Fake Isle hat and My So Called Scarf. The hat is way too big, so I think I will frog it. The scarf is going slowly, especially since it's hard to figure out how to fix mistakes, but the yarn is so darn yummy that I haven't gotten sick of it yet, which is sort of surprising! I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will get them soon.

In the meantime, here is a picture of Mt. Jefferson from a ski trail at Timberline on Mt. Hood.

Handspun Wristy

2007-12-16T11:17:00.000-06:00

Step 1: Get some roving.

Step 2: Spin some yarn.
(Ok, step two is a lot longer than that. First, spin a really really skinny single. Then spin a slightly less skinny single. Then figure how out to ply them together. Yikes)

Step 3: Cast on 12 sts and knit until the yarn is gone.

Step 4: Join into a circle and place on wrist.

I am trying to get better at spinning, can you tell? This was my very first attempt at plying. I am going to have to spin the yarn with a lot more twist if I want the plying to go better. I also have to figure out a better way to keep the singles under control so they don't lose all their twist before I can ply them. Maybe a mug would work, with the end strung through the handle. I'm thinking I need a lazy kate.

I've a ridiculously large amount of this roving. I really want a spinning wheel because it is kind of annoying to have to keep winding the yarn onto the drop spindle. It may take me years to spin it all! What do you think the people in my life would say if I asked for a lazy kate and a spinning wheel for Christmas???

Sweetie

2007-12-08T09:21:00.000-06:00

Lookit what Seany brought me back from his business trip! (Yes, I get that it's backwards. Photobooth is like that. It's weird.)

What a sweetie for thinking of me and for carrying a gingerbread house kit all the way back on an airplane!

A Hat Full of Spiders!

2007-12-06T20:42:00.001-06:00

Aka, butterfly hat, aka Fleece MEGA hat.

So...I invented the warmest hat I've ever worn. Normal hats don't keep my ears warm- they either don't cover my ears or they do cover my eyes, both of which are not that great. Ear flap hats are good if you can find them I guess, but I couldn't find any patterns I really liked. So I made this hat. Then I made it again and then I made it again.

I like it so much because of two things.
1) The shape of it is exactly like the shape of the part of my head that I want to keep warm. That is, it covers my ears and is a bit longer in the back than in the front so it's toasty everywhere.
2) It's lined with polar fleece (or Minkee. So soft!), so it's pretty much impervious to the cold. (If you see my previous post about my glove mittens, you will realize I am a big fan of layered winter gear!

I call this one a Hat Full of Spiders because I think the butterfly stitch looks more like spiders. Plus spiders are way cooler to have on a hat. I saw the butterfly stitch on Knitty Gritty and decided it would make a good hat. Here is a link to a hat that has this stitch. It is a very awesome pattern, and it would have been even awesomer if I had found it before I actually made the hat! I lined it with lavender fleece because that's what I had around and it was snowing so I didn't feel like running to the fabric store!

This pink one was the first hat I made with this pattern, from about a year ago. It's from my first attempt at handspun/ hand-dyed yarn, and it looks kind of goofy. I am very proud of it though. I posted it on craftster a long time ago along with the pattern, but I sucked at posting then and I think it sort of got lost.

Finally, this is another one from last winter. I discovered Paton's SWS, (which I heart immensely) and decided it needed to be a hat. And I decided to add ribbing to see what it would look like. I lined it with Minkee fabric, which is so so so soft, but it doesn't stretch in the direction that I sewed it in, and it's way too tight and I already cut off the extra sean allowance and so I can't rip it out and resew it. So I like it but it hurts to wear for too long!

Here they are all together, a toasty trio.

Anyway, here is the pattern for the basic hat! Don't sell it.

Amazing Hat with Earflaps
By Emily Thomas

Needle: size 7, 16” circular needle. Size 7 dpns.
Yarn: Any worsted weight yarn
Gauge: 18 st x 24 rows = 4”

Earflaps

Work 2 at the same time, with 2 different balls (or two ends).
CO 2
R1: kf&b twice (4 st)
R2: kf&b 4 times (8 st)
R3: kf&b, k6, kf&b (10 st)
R4: kf&b, kf&b, p6, kf&b, kf&b (14 st)
R5: k14
R6: p14
R7: kf&b, k12, kf&b (16 st)
R8: Flap 1: p15, kf&b, CO3 (20 st)
R8: Flap 2: CO3 st to end of previous row, turn, p3, kf&b, p12 (20 st)

From now on, both flaps will be worked together. Break the unused yarn.
R9: kf&b, k19, CO8, continue across and join the flaps, k19 (2nd flap), kf&b (50 st total)
R10: p50 (50 st)
R11: kf&b, k48, kf&b (52 st)
R12: p52
R13: kf&b, k50, kf&b (54 st)
R14: kf&b, p52, kf&b (56 st)
R15: kf&b, k1, kf&b, k50, kf&b, k1, kf&b (60 st)
R16: CO3 at end of previous row, turn, p63, CO3 (66 st)
R17: k across, CO 14, join to knit in the round

Main Hat

Knit around for 4.5” more inches.

Decrease for Top
Switch to dpns when it gets too tight for circulars.

R1: k8, k2tog around
R2: k
R3: k7, k2tog around
R4: k
R5: k6, k2tog around
R6: k
R7: k5, k2tog around
R8: k
R9: k4, k2tog around
R10: k
R11: k3, k2tog around
R12: k
R13: k2, k2tog around
R14: k
R15: k1, k2tog around
R16: k2tog around until 6 st remain.

Break off about 12” of yarn. Thread it through remaining stitches and pull to close. Weave in all ends.

Blocking will help keep the edges from rolling up.

Lining

Cut an 18” x 12” piece of polar fleece.
Fold in half (the hamburger way) so it is now 9” x 12”.
Sew with a ½” seam allowance to make a tube.
With chalk (ok, I used a blue highlighter) draw this pattern along the top of the tube:

Pin the adjacent edges of the arcs together and sew, so that all the points come together at the top.

Try the hat on with the seam in the back. (You’ll probably want to trim it a bit so you can breathe.) Put the knit hat on over the fleece hat. Draw the outline of the knit hat onto the fleece, leaving enough room to turn the edge under.

Cut along the line. Pin the fleece lining into the knit hat, turning the edge under. Sew along the bottom edge.

Edging

To even out the edges, I crocheted along the edge. Single crochet or crab stitch would work well for this.

Tassels (make 2)

Cut three to five 25” lengths of yarn and twist together until they twist back on themselves. Tie a knot at the end. Attach to the ear flaps (a crochet hook is helpful here).

There you go! A new hat!

Christmas Babies Part 2

2007-11-21T20:55:00.000-06:00

Awwwww. Just in time for the snow, too! Perfect!

Christmas Babies!

2007-11-20T16:40:00.000-06:00

Apparently I am all about starting new projects this week. I discovered some red MicroSpun and some ridiculously fluffy white Yarn Bee and so I am going to make Christmas hats for the preemies! And I've started early enough that I might actually be able to donate something. Now I just need to buy cardstock to print tags. This is my way of confessing that the reason I haven't actually donated anything to the Preemie Project lately is that I don't have any cardstock for tags. I should really do something about that. I suck.

But you should feel how soft this hat is.

Lizard Ridge

2007-11-18T16:00:00.000-06:00

I got so excited about finally finishing those darn mittens that I let myself start another project I've been thinking of for awhile. Lizard Ridge from Knitty is supposed to be knit with Noro Kureyon, but this yarn was part of a kit to knit a different afghan that I inherited from my Grandma. My uncle has the blanket made from the original pattern so I wanted to do something different with it. I figured Lizard Ridge would be a great way to make interesting stripes.

This pattern is much more fun to knit than I anticipated, and it is going faster, too. It helps that I have figured out how to knit backward recently, and I am getting almost as quick knitting backward as I am purling forward. This makes the short rows go pretty fast. The color changes are just often enough to be interesting but not often enough to make annoying ends. I have even woven in every end I have made so far, so if I keep this up (and actually ever finish after this initial excitement wears off soon) I will not have much finishing to do!

I am also knitting it in strips instead of squares. I'm not sure exactly how much yarn I will have to make it, so I might have to do some math at some point, but for now I am just knitting (= The yarn is only 25% wool, so I am a bit worried that the bumps won't block out, but I actually kind of like them. Especially since the yarn is a bit less exciting than the Kureyon, it adds some interest to it.

Take that, Winter! Mittens

2007-11-16T15:11:00.000-06:00

Woohoo!!! My hands will never be cold again!

I decided to make these last winter when I was standing in the below 0ºF windchill waiting for the bus. It was too cold for gloves, but mittens didn't let me use my fingers to get my bus pass out of my wallet. Mittens with fingerless gloves or whatever they are called inside would probably have been ok, but then my poor fingertips would be exposed to the cold. So I looked through my stash and realized that I had some sock yarn that pretty much exactly matched my wool yarn so I decided to pair them together to make these!
I used the sock yarn to knit some gloves with no cuff and I used the wool yarn to knit some giant mittens with no cuff that I later felted to make them fit nice and snug. Then I put the glove on inside the mitten picked up stitches through both parts around the cuff and knit down for awhile! Ta da!

I'd put up more pictures and details and stuff, but the internet is being all weird, so that will probably wait till tomorrow.

Sneak Peek

2007-11-15T16:34:00.000-06:00

Here is a tiny look at part of the project I am working on. Doesn't it look great?

No, not so much, you say? Just you wait till tomorrow! I am almost done, and I couldn't be more excited!! Especially if it remains as darn windy as it's been lately. Eeee! I can't wait to be finished!

Nose!

2007-11-09T09:47:00.000-06:00

I got my nose pierced! A couple friends and I were at the coffee house getting interviewed for the newspaper about the Preemie Project and I was like, "let's go get pierced!" and one of my friends was like "yeah!" So after the interview we went over and got some brand new holes! Like I posted in facebook: "I was recently thinking to myself: "You know, I haven't had any major puncture wounds within an inch of my brain lately." Also, "Man, what could I do with this $40 in my pocket?" So I found a guy who would punch a hole in my nose. And now I have a nose piercing. The end."

The picture is lame. Don't you like how staticy my hair is? It's really bad when I am brushing the cat because you can literally hear him crackle. I am afraid I will touch him one day and he will spark and catch on fire or something. We turned the humidifier way up, but I am not convinced it is helping!

Carbs and Pants

2007-11-03T09:49:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure why I felt like posting these particular pictures today, but I think when I took these pictures in June I was still a bit weirded out by the whole "new me" thing. Maybe I have finally spent enough time being how I am now to be comfortable enough to share it. Anyway, when I first moved here (Iowa, far away from home, as is pretty obvious by the previous post...) I didn't know many people so instead I ate a lot of cookies and watched a lot of tv and gained a bit of weight, like 10 or 15 lbs.

That's when I bought these pants, which are a size 12. At that point I weighed something like 162 lbs.

Then I decided maybe I didn't feel like being like that anymore, so I stopped eating so many cookies. Then my friends told me about the South Beach Diet and I started following that. For two weeks I didn't eat a single itty bitty carb, not even fruit. I learned about ordering double vegetables at restaurants instead of pasta or potatoes. I started eating more eggs than I'd ever eaten in my life. I learned that things that are good on bread can often also be good on slices of bell peppers (probably tuna and hummus more than peanut butter and jelly... ew!) I started going to the gym to watch tv instead of going home to watch tv. After about 4 or 5 months of this, I lost about 35 lbs.

That's when I bought these pants, which are a size 2. Now I weight something like 127 lbs, but I've stopped weighing myself so obsessively since my weight hasn't changed in several months.

Now I have learned to be more careful with what I eat. When I know I will be going to a party or somewhere where there will be a lot of candy and carb-y beer and pizza (or if it's Halloween, for example) I will try to eat carefully the rest of the day, so that I can enjoy the good stuff without feeling bad about it. I also go to karate 3 times a week, which is such a good workout that I think I could even start eating non-flaxseed pasta (gasp!) and be ok.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. Woo!

I went to Oregon!!!

2007-10-29T22:45:00.000-05:00

Oregon is way better than Iowa. Seriously.

Painting vs Sculpting

2007-10-26T13:34:00.000-05:00

When I say "Painting vs Sculpting," I am talking about knitting, of course. I've been thinking lately about different types of knitters and why I am drawn to some projects and not others. I think it comes down to whether people prefer to sculpt with their yarn or paint with their yarn.

Here's what I mean:
Often online, I will see blogs and forum postings from people who make nothing but socks. Gorgeous, hand-dyed, different intricate-lace-pattern-every-time socks. Or they make fair-isle scarves or sweaters which are a plain rectangle with very complex colorwork patterns. Or crazy aran blankets with a hundred different squiggles scattered across them. I am starting to think of this as "painting" fancy designs with the knitting.

I, on the other hand, am more interested in scuplting interesting shapes with my yarn. For awhile I thought that this was because of the fact that I am generally watching TV while I am knitting and I don't feel like counting every stitch. After mulling this over, however, I think really it's no less complex, and no more mindless to count the 6 stitches that come before a complicted increase that will eventually become the nose of some sort of hat creature (or whatever) than to count the 6 stitches that come before a color change or a yo, sl1, ssk, psso (or whatever) of a lace pattern.

It's not that I don't like fair-isle or aran knitting or lace. I've made perfectly good things using all of these techniques. It's just that when I find myself day-dreaming about knitting (yeah, I really do that) it's rarely because I am trying to figure out how to incorporate colorwork into a pattern. It's much more likely that I will fear my cat will get cold in the winter and so I will be trying to figure out how to knit a cat-cozy... or I will wonder how I would do the increases if I wanted a sweater with a zipper that went diagonally across the front... or I will wonder how to make the cuffs if I want to knit mittens that are also gloves (my new amazing project I mentioned in the last post).

Therefore, I think that there are two types of knitting, painting with color or lacework or cables, and sculpting with interesting shapes. In order to be a master of knitting, I feel like you have to be able to seamlessly integrate these two components into each other. This is what I strive for as a knitter.

Knitting

2007-10-26T00:17:00.000-05:00

I really have been knitting, I swear. It's just that, well, I haven't been knitting a lot, you see. And for everything that I am knitting right now I am making up the pattern as I go along and writing it down. Which means I feel like at some point in my life I should send these patterns I am writing down to some sort of knitting publication and make them put them somewhere for people to see. Which means that I can't post it online if I want someone else to do it for me. Which is silly. I think I will post my project I am working on now, anyway. It is going to be very awesome when it's done. This may very well be the worst post ever.

Music

2007-10-20T08:17:00.000-05:00

So, I was asked to make someone a CD of my favorite songs so they could "broaden their cultural awareness" or something. I had a lot of fun going through my music and putting this together, so I thought I'd share it!

3 Libras, A Perfect Circle
Lithium, Nirvana
Walking And Thinking, Ra
Road Trippin', Red Hot Chili Peppers
Realize, Colbie Caillat
Blackbird, The Beatles
Danny's Song, Kenny Loggins
The Only Living Boy In New York, Simon & Garfunkel
The Luckiest, Ben Folds
Wherever You Will Go, The Calling
Mad World, Gary Jules
New Slang , The Shins
All At Once, The Fray
Somewhere Only We Know, Keane
Ants Marching, Dave Matthews Band
Yellow, Coldplay
Float On, Modest Mouse
I Stand Alone, Godsmack
How Much Longer, Eve 6
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps, Cake
Super Mario Bros, Boston Pops