Friday, June 27, 2008

Garanimals and Underoos

So here's how busy life has been lately... Not only did I mail the mortgage payment 3 days late (seriously folks; I NEVER do that), but two days of the last five, I've somehow managed to put my underpants on inside out. No, not upside down, not backwards (thank goodness), but inside out, with the little tag flapping around on my right hip like a little "I surrender to crazy-busy" flag. Wonder what I'll do tomorrow...

Busy with writing work, busy with teaching knitting (3 classes in 8 days? Ca-razy!), busy finishing more things! Behold!

Fetching (done in Cascade's Greenland yarn, 100% superwash merino). (Okay, so I finished these a week or so ago, but this is 'wearing them' picture!)

Bistro shirt (done in Rowan's Summer Tweed, 70% silk, 30% cotton). (Ditto on the shirt.)

Jaywalkers (done in Yarn Place's Vivace, 100% bamboo). (Sorry - this used to be a Magknits pattern; since they went out of business, the link will only work for Ravelry members.)

As a reward for finally doing the last of the Bistro shirt seaming, I told myself I could cast on another sweater. Which I did. Then promptly cast on a second sweater! First is Hibito, done in KnitPicks Shine Worsted. Easy, fun; major modification: color bands. Light pink at the bottom, medium pink at the middle, purple at the top (undecided at the sleeves).

Second is Picchu-Picchu, done in Berroco Ultra Alpaca. Looks easy and a slightly different way to shape a sweater. Major modification: more color bands. Green heather ribbings, purple healther body.

Both are Norah Gaughan designs. Coincidence? I think not - I ADORE her designs!

In other news, the forgery situation seems to have been resolved satisfactorily. Although we don't know who did each of the forgeries (there were two; one was successful, the second was not), the bank has honored our claim and gave us back out missing money. The fact that they put it back into the compromised account (which was on hard lockdown) and I had to go to a branch to get it moved to the new account was just an eye-rolling thing; nothing to get overly upset over. We are much more cautious these days, an NO outbound mail gets put into the mailbox.

Finally, happy birthday CG!! Have a great weekend!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Odds 'n Ends, Onnacounta It's Been So Long

More finished objects!

My Fetching fingerless gloves are done! Made with Cascade's Greenland yarn (100% superwash merino) in a yummy color that's kind of plummy/grapey (oh, and thank you, ChickenKnittle!). Made the first one more or less to pattern, and used #6 needles - 3 sizes smaller than the recommended#9. Stiff? Let's just say they stood up on their own! So I made the second one with #8 needles, and decreased the number of cable repeats from 9 to 8. Softer fabric, nicer fit. So, unravelling the first one as I knit, I made a third one to match the second one. Voila! Matching Fetchings! (Oh, and they're longer than the pattern calls for, too.)


Bistro shirt is finally done! When I tried it on at Sunday Knit Club yesterday, Knitterliness said it looked like I had a tire track up my front. Hm. The pattern is plain stockinette, and in order to save me from acres and acres of that, I decided to add some stripes with some seed-stitch interest. Unfortunately, as she says, it does sort of look like a tire track. But it fits! The picture shows it blocking/drying on the hood of my car in the garage. Oh, and for anyone who wants to know - the yarn is Rowan Summer Tweed (70% silk, 30% cotton), which is wonderful to knit with... but dudes... this sucker is HEAVY when it's wet! The best news, though? Now I get to cast on for another sweater! Yay!


The entrelac socks are done! No, no knee-socks for me. These are Koigu and much though I'm SO over my love affair with Koigu, I'll probably make one more pair of socks with the leftover yarn just to get rid of it. These socks are surprisingly comfy, though, despite all the little pick-up rows needed. I like!


Finished the second washcloth as a going-away gift for my neighbor, who's moving to Houston. Both used the same pattern from Creative Knitting, but the green one is BMFA STR Heavyweight (Mossay), the white one is Paton's Grace (Spearmint). I think both will serve well as washcloths. She really liked them.


Yesterday is a Finished Object, in a matter of speaking, and we had 5 show up for our little World Wide Knit in Public Day. At first we were split across the street from each other, with 2 at Rosy's and 3 at Ragoots. Around 2:00, Champer and I bid farewell to the nice waitress at Rosy's and joined the other 3 at Ragoots (Knitterliness, Kadootje, ChickWithSticks), where the 5 of us hung out until 3:45 or so. I'm pleased to say that I was the only one who resisted the call of the yarn from the yarn shop right next door!


Now, off to peruse the patterns, books, Ravelry, and my stash to decide on a sweater to cast on... Shall it be Mr Greenjeans? Hibito? The Celtic Cardigan? Tilted Duster? Vanilla Spice? So many to choose from!

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

That Feeling in the Pit of Your Stomach

I am rather fastidious about checking my banking account balances. I want to see when things have cleared, make sure that someone didn't finger-fumble an amount from $45.09 to $450.90, know that I didn't do a finger-fumble when transferring money from one account to another.

So yesterday, I had been downloading account information from our bank into my Quicken software and had just reconciled everything (which balanced, naturally). I went back to online banking and saw that a new item had cleared in the 20 minutes or so I was fiddling around with Quicken. I took out the register to find that check number... and found the check number - still in my possession!

That feeling in my stomach was somewhere between wanting to toss my cookies and wanting to kill someone. I was holding that check number in my hand - it hadn't made it to the mail yet - and yet someone else had cashed it. I immediately got on the phone to the bank, but thanks to their 'press 1 if you want butter on your bagel,' and 'press 2 if you want someone to slap a dead fish on your house,' I couldn't figure out how to get to a live human. So we grabbed the documentation and hustled over to the bank's local branch...

...where we promptly saw 8 people on the teller line, 4 people waiting to talk to the 1 poor schmuck who was in charge of everything except what the tellers did. We put our name on the list and after it became clear that it would take a while, I tried calling the bank's 800- number again. This time I managed to get a human (the initial help desk person, who's only job - she told me this - was to transfer calls to the 'right place')... who transferred me to another human (in Risk Operations)... who transferred me to another human (in Forgery). Right after speaking to the Forgery lady (which took a while), we were able to talk to a manager at the branch.

As it turns out, the check was presented by someone in a Castro Valley branch who deposited it into their own account at 3:03. We were in the bank by 3:30 and had a case number assigned and a new checking account by 4:15. I bet the Bad Guys weren't counting on trying to cheat someone as obsessive about her bank accounts like me!

In the end, we'll get our money back from the bank, we only had 2 outstanding checks (and both parties hadn't yet cashed them), and the bank is making sure we are not harmed financially by someone else being bad to us.

That feeling in the pit of my stomach is gone now.

Monday, June 2, 2008

A Parade of FOs

Hard to believe, but I'm actually finishing things...

CG's socks.


SIL's mittens.


KB's Crystalline Lattice socks/booties.


The entrelac socks are almost done, they're having their ribbing put on (no pix yet).

But of course, no good FO happens without a corresponding cast-on... there's a gift being knit for someone who reads this blog, so I can't talk about it.

My present to myself for completing the seaming of the Bistro Shirt (when I get around to finishing the seaming) will be to cast on for another sweater. Either Tilted Duster or Vanilla Spice or Mr. Greenjeans or the Celtic Cardigan or Hibito or... who knows...