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!

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!

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.

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...

World-wide Knit in Public Day - June 14

Well, as with so many things, I'm just going to dive in and host a WWKIP day this year. I'll be aiming to find an eatery on Monterey Road (Morgan Hill) that's willing to let a bunch of knitters and crocheters park themselves for 2 hours or so and knit in public. The two that spring to mind, are very close to the other yarn shop in town... Rosy's at the Beach is across the street, and Ragoot's is right next door! Oh well, knitters are knitters! Come one, come all!

Have no idea how many will show up (I think there will be at least 4 of us), but will try to promote it a little bit with flyers at Madonna's, maybe Bobbin's Nest (if Erin isn't sponsoring one herself), maybe ... who knows where? The library?

Will YOU come?

At 6s and 7s

So is it possible to be a startaholic AND have finishitis at the same time? I have been wanting to show some progress and finish things (I still have a large number of things on-needles), and feel like I've been productive:

- I finished the Upstream socks WooBu and gave them to my SIL.

- I finished my Upstreams in Collinette Jitterbug (thanks, Chickenknittle!) and have even worn them twice already.

- The ends of my Bistro shirt have been sunk and now only needs the final side seaming to be done.

- When I go to Monday and Thursday knits, I am only knitting on my entrelac socks, and they're coming along quite well.

- I decided to gift the Crystalline Lattice socks (in Lorna's Laces) to KB.

- The Jaywalkers in Yarn Place's Vivace (bamboo) will go to Gromknit, so I am jazzed about finishing those for her.



Of course, I have been dying to cast on new things, but have only cast on:

- Another pair of socks with the yummy blue Claudia's that my Monday group gave me. Haven't decided on the pattern yet.

-I cast on another ... oops... nevermind.


In the "I don't have a problem" category, I *resisted* casting on for these, but really REALLY wanted to:

• - Tilted Duster.
• - Celtic Cardigan.
• - Phiaro scarf/shawl.
• - A pair of Flat Feet socks.
• - Landscape shawl (waiting patiently for the KAL).
• - Another Coriolis sock (waiting patiently for the KAL).

Of course, that still leaves these on needles that I haven't touched in a while:

• - The Clapotis.
• - The Lacey Vee tee.
• - Secret Garden vest.

• - Faroese Peaks shawl.

And overall for the Year of Finishing Dangerously? Only the Bistro Shirt counts! I'm pathetic...

Sock Camp, Part Last

So... where wuz I? Oh yeah, Thursday...

Thursday was our second full day of classes. We started with Cookie A's class on traveling stitches. Interesting. Not enthralling, but a basic primer on where you increase and decrease.

Our second class was with JC Briar, and was awesome: A Cornucopia of Cast-ons! We learned little circle cast-ons (to make center-out thingys) and long-tail cast-on done in PURL and Judy's Magic Cast-on (which finally 'clicked' for me! yay!) and why doing a long-tail cast-on on a larger needle does not fix the unstretchiness of it (it has to do with the part that loops at the base of the stitch, not the part that goes over the needle!) and the German Twisted Cast-on (well, I sort of learned that... it was the last one of the day, and well... I was tired; I don't think that one 'stuck,' but Knitterliness knows it, so when I'm ready, she can teach me!).

Thursday night was... Um. Nice? Fun? I'm sure it was; we were hanging around with Hizknits and his mom and Chickenknittle so of course we were having fun! But I wonder what we did and where we went... Monday was Olga's, Tuesday was somewhere, Wednesday was the fancy place, Thursday was... maybe that was our Mexican night. I shoulda tooken better notes, huh? After dinner, though, it was another knitting competition - the "you can knit with anything" competition, where 5 or 6 poor souls had to knit with things like: drill bits, Slim Jim beef jerky sticks, birthday candles, cake slicers, toothbrushes, paper towel roll tubes. Everyone managed to finish, proving: you CAN knit with anything! After that one, the teachers, Tina, and Cockeyed had to demonstrate knitting with turkey basters. Gotta tell ya, after watching the others knit with more challenging items, this looked like a (relative) cake walk! But fun to watch!

Friday was supposed to be an organized charity knitting day, but Nathania (who was going to lead us) couldn't make it, so there were 5 "let's just sit and knit charity blanket" stations for people to pop in and pop out of, and the rest of the time was the ultimate 'stitch and bitch' time - all damn day. Fabulous. A lot of people were working on their monkeys (I think this was where most of them turned into their over-the-top selves); I worked on my entrelac socks, happy for the chance to let the rhythyn of the 6x12 units take over. Oh yeah, I got to hold Stephanie's traveling sock and she held my entrelac sock! Wheee! Giddy with being so close to one of my idols! (It was really cool to think back... back when I was learning how to knit one sock on two circulars from Cat's book, and back when I didn't even know who the Yarn Harlot was, I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that I would ever meet them, much less be sitting between them, talking like they were real people! Awesome. I didn't even slobber too much over them or their knitting.)

That night was the talent show, sock puppet skit, sock monkey show-off time, and thank-the-organizers-and-staff time. The talent show had one knitter who recently learned how to yodel (like real yodeling, not just pretend-Tarzan stuff... who knew?), and a woman who had knit while doing lots of different things but who had never knit while dancing - so she danced and knit! The sock puppet skits (there were 3) were cute; each entry had to include a list of 8 sayings that were heard around Camp for the week, including "It's not Tina's fault!", "Don't touch my monkey," and some others I can't recall. We all sang the official Sock Camp song (an appropriate variation on Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love' - 'Addicted to Yarn,' created by Hizknits hizself), then lined up all our monkeys. Similar yarn, totally different monkeys. I especially liked Harlot's and Cat's monkeys: Harlot's knitting a sock on DPNs (toothpicks), Cat's knitting a sock on 2 circs (also toothpicks). Oh, and Stephanie made an argyle vest for hers. Because she could, silly. (The wine at 1:00 am may have helped...)

Cockeyed asked to be surrounded by monkey love (say that anywhere else and it might get you arrested), so her wish was fulfilled.

After that, we applauded and hooted and hollered long and hard for the staff and organizers and teachers who had made this thing come together so well. Tina and Cat and Stephanie and Debbie and Tammy and JC and CookieA and Marilyn and I can't even remember all the others - it was totally awesome and fun and exhilarating and just plain ole' wheeeee!!!!!

There will be a Sock Camp 2009 - I'm marking my calendar!