It will be mine!!!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I found it! I found the perfect bag again! After a week of trying to put together just the right combination of words to search on, my Google fu returned and I found, first the designer, then the US website that sells the bags but not the one I want and then finally, the US website that sells the bag I HAD TO HAVE! And I
will have it. It's already paid for and everything. You can see its pretty, pretty picture
here (item #1). The designer's name is Shinzi Katoh, and he is apparently one of the premier designers of Zakka, which is apparently pretty popular, whatever it is. Also, I inserted that wild lie about the site the blog (which I did not find) led me to being a kid/mom site just to throw you all off. It is in fact a fabric/yarn site. And a pretty cool one at that. So sorry,
SuperBuzzy.
Okay, the baby's asleep, the husband's out living large at one of his rugby buddies houses, and I just finished a huge project for work. Sounds like a great time to unwind with a little vino, but because of the little bambino (the one inside me) I will instead have a little MS3 (and also some raspberry lemonade with ice chips, which is my drink of choice for this pregnancy). I'm on row 13. I'm way, way behind. Oh, and also, I hate people who can knit a pair of socks in a week. Hate you. It takes me longer to knit a pair of socks that it does to knit a sweater. And I enjoy it -- it doesn't seem to me like the knitting is particularly diffcult or tedious, but the calendar doesn't lie. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that in there.
Wouldn't it be great if this had a title?
Here's the yarn that's up for grabs in the naming contest:
So far, the only (legitimate -- Kit, I know those first three were you) entrant is Aidan, which I do like, but that's no reason not to get your own suggestions in! And remember, if we choose your entry as the actual name (whether it's my favorite or not), you'll get additional goodies. There may even be more yarn in it for you. So get namin'!
In case you need more inspiration, here's the ever adorable Becky Jayne taking a quick break from wreaking havoc on her very own Daddy pillow.
Aren't they just sweet?
Now for some not-so-sweet stuff. The knitting. Erg. I was doing so nicely on the Ring Cycle socks -- I had a problem, but I was fixing it and everything was coming out just lovely. And then, somehow, I managed to eff up the ribbing pattern. Which meant that it didn't match up with the rest of the pattern, which was the whole point of using
Criminy Jicket's setup. To be clear, CJ's setup is perfectly fine. It is I who cannot follow directions. Sigh. So I ripped back and am now just about done with the ribbing again (I haven't done much knitting at all this week). Double sigh.
I've been avoiding my stepmother's socks -- which, ooooo, did I tell you? have a name now: Inflorescence -- because I was stymied about what to do with the pattern on the heel. See, on the toes it has this pretty start so it doesn't look like it just starts in the middle of the pattern, and I kinda want that on the heels, too. But how to accomplish it? Do I introduce yet another chart? Should it start above the heel or have a portion of the pattern on the actual heel? As usual for me, I'm doing the Turkish afterthough heel from Lucy Neatby's Warm Feet, Cool Socks rather than the more traditional heel flap (we hates the heel flaps!) and my concern is that other people would prefer to switch heels and do the flap, which they won't be able to do as easily if the pattern extends on to the heel. And then I decided it would be much prettier with the pattern on the heel, so that's how I'm doing it. Now I just need to find the sock, which I'm pretty sure is lost somewhere in the black hole we like to call "the loveseat."
In other unhappy news, I found The Perfect Bag. I know, right, that doesn't sound unhappy. But I lost The Perfect Bag. I don't know why I didn't order when I had the chance. I had it up in my browser for days. Then I closed the browser, and now I can't find it again. The first one I saw was on someone's blog -- obviously someone who I don't read regularly, because I have now been through months of back posts by everyone in my Google Reader and can't find it. It's someone with kids, and it was referred to as their new favorite bag. The store they linked to (a kid/mom store) didn't have any designs I liked so I Googled and found some other sources, one of which had exactly what I wanted. I have been through my browser history and past Google searches and have come up empty. Here's a description, just in case: the bag is long and short (think 15x4in, though I'm not sure of the exact dimensions) and made of canvas. It's a Japanese designer, and a lot of the designs have French phrases on them. They retail for $25-30. Sound familiar to anyone?
Ding-dong, Avon calling!
So, I'm doing this project at work that involved me doing a bunch of research on independent sales reps. You know, like people that sell Mary Kay, or Pampered Chef, or Avon. One of the things I thought would be helpful (and it was) was to actually go through the sign up process to become an independent rep. I chose
Avon because it was easy, and they don't make you have parties. It turns out, they have some really cool stuff (aside from the skin care stuff, which is not really my cuppa. I got no time for skin care. Yeah, I know I'm going to regret it in a few years, but I just can't stand putting a bunch of stuff on my face at night and then in the morning I'm pretty lucky to get my hair and teeth brushed, much less apply stuff to my face. I don't even put makeup on until I'm on the train. But anyhow.) like the mark. accessories and clothes, and some of their jewelry and stuff. Plus, they have what I think might actually be the absolute most awsome beauty care thing ever: Instant manicure/pedicure. It's nail polish that comes on these strips that you just apply to the appropriate nail and then peel off the backing. No muss, no fuss. No wet polish to deal with while chasing a 15 month old or waiting for it to be dry enough after she goes to bed so the sheets don't leave an imprint. No waiting for it to dry so you can knit! And it
lasts. I put on the pedicure about 2 weeks ago and it still looks fresh as a daisy. Amazing. Love it. So anyhow, I'll be adding a link to the sidebar soon(ish) so you can order some Avon from me if you want.
Also soon to be added to the sidebar is a lovely pic of Ramona's
Campanula sock pattern, which you yourself can own for a small donation. It's a great pattern for a great cause: she's doing the Weekend to End Breast Cancer, a 60k walk. Sponsor her, get the pattern.
Which makes for a nice segue into my
knitting news: I made a little progress on my Ring Cycle socks this morning. I started the charts, only I started them from the top (non-knitters: charts are knit from the bottom up, not top down). Not only that, they didn't work out quite right with a non-twist round as the foundation, so after the first chart and half of the second one (not as bad as it sounds, only about 20 stitches) I tinked and knit another round of ribbing -- a twist round. Then I got about halfway through the second chart again before I realized my mistake and tinked back. I started to just go ahead with the charts from the bottom, but it turns out that they really do work better on top of a non-twist. So I'm working round 2 of the charts and dropping/manipulating stitches from that extraneous twist round. Turns out it's not so bad -- lots of the stitches for R1 of the charts just continue the ribbing. Nice not to have to tink back. Also, I have not yet cast on for MS3 -- I finally got needles the other day, but given what I've been reading about it, I need some nice quiet alone time to work on this one. And what with the beads and everything, I'm thinking not on the train. Maybe next week sometime.
And I'm headed to opera #3 (Siegfried) tonight. This has really been one of the best Christmas presents ever. I'm totally enjoying the operas, despite the snarky comments from those around me who seem to be upset that the stage isn't traditionally dressed. Well, duh. Did you not see the pictures of the Kirov's production when you bought the tickets? I did, and I knew everything would be very stark and symbolic. That doesn't take away from the marvelous music and singing (well, mostly it's marvelous. I was a little disppointed in Brunhilde. I can't think of any other way to describe her voice than "unattractive."), as far as I can tell. So, thank you again, Kit -- this is something I've wanted to see and hear live for a long time and I really appreciate you giving me the time and opportunity to do it.
Finally,
the contest. We need a baby name. Whoever comes up with the baby name I like best (leave a comment) gets a skein of Schaeffer Anne (pic in next post). If we actually use the name you suggest, I'll throw in some additional surprise goodies. If the two are not the same, the one I like best gets the yarn and the one we go with gets the surprise goodies. A suggestion has been made by a friend of ours that the name should anagram -- you get bonus points if it does (please include the anagram -- remember, I'm burning water over here. It is highly unlikely that I will spot your nifty anagram all on my own.). Also, Nathan and Zachary are already taken by Kit and me (and if you read his blog you know that) so no fair picking one of those. Well, you can pick Zachary, but you're not going to win anything.
Not enough time
I'm just finishing up with work, so no time for a real post. But for those of you who are interested, we found out today that New Baby is a...nah, you don't really want to know, do you? Okay, fine -- he's a BOY! We'll have a set! Goody! And tomorrow, a contest. And a real post. With pictures and everything. Maybe.
Brain break
My brain decided to take a little mini-vacation today. I hope it had a great time on the beach sipping rum runners. I missed it, a lot. I'll give a nice juicy post tomorrow if it's back.
Look! Cutest baby ever!
ETA: Yes, I forgot to actually upload the pictures last night. Hey, the other day I burned water, so in the grand scheme of things, I whould probably be forgetting this instead of that.
Now that I have distracted you from the number of days it has been between posts (hey, at least now I can say "days" instead of "weeks"), let's move on.
An ApologyI owe my SP10 spoilee a huge, huge apology, and I think it's appropriate that it be public. I really fell down on the job this time by not emailing as often as I should have and not sending her package out until very late. I'm not sure what happened -- I had such a great time finding everything to put in her package and even had it packed by the first week in July. And then it just sat there. Mara, I'm really, really sorry, and I do hope you enjoy your package. You should be receiving it later this week (it went out UPS on Friday).
Baby stuff (old and new)Becky has a fun new game: she picked up on me saying "Excuse you?!?!?" when she swatted at me one morning, so now she likes to trade "Scoose oo?"s with me until she eventually dissolves into a fit of giggles. Since I also dissolve into a fit of giggles, this works out okay for us. She also tried 3 new foods this morning, two of which were chewables, and didn't throw a tantrum at me when we went in to have breakfast. This is something of a major breakthrough -- I hope it lasts. She a great kid and tons of fun most of the time, but lately mealtimes have been a trial.
I finally remembered to see if they have Pullups in her size so we can start the potty training -- she loves to go into the bathroom and sit on her potty, so I think she's ready to at least try it. Hit a bit of a snag, though. See, when Becky was a teeny tiny baby, she used to compeltely freak out when she had a wet diaper. As she's gotten older, she's stopped doing that. Apparently the absorbency's just better on the mid-size diapers, because when she had a wet diaper in the Pullups (which are designed to let kids feel the wetness), it was the end of the world. Complete breakdown. She was so traumatized that I didn't even want to take her into the bathroom because I don't want her to associate the bathroom with being that upset. I mean, really, it's like someone is sticking her with pins (this is even more odd when you take into account that she's never had a real diaper rash in her entire life, so it's not like she's got super sensitive skin on her tushie). So no more Pullups for now. I'm going to get the nighttime ones because they're supposed to be more absorbent, so hopefully those will work.
No real news about New Baby, but we'll find out Wednesday which flavor we're getting this time and I'll be sure to let you know.
Knittin' StuffI got my invite! I got my invite! To
Ravelry, of course. Now I just have to become organized (they want to know about my stach and my books! That's going to take me forever!), start taking pictures of my knitting (and posting them on Flickr), decide on an avatar, join some groups, etc., etc.
So maybe having this FO is a good thing!
This is
Leaf, from Spring Knitty. I enjoyed knitting this, but I'm not entirely pleased with the final product, and in case I blame the designer since I actually knit it according to the directions (except that I changed the bottom edges to seed stitch and no hemming, and only applied the i-cord to the sides and not across the back) and did get gauge. See, if you look at the pictures that accompany the pattern, you'll see that the sleeve is very fitted to the arm. Not usually my style, but in this case very attractive. The sleeves on my sweater? Hang like I've just put my arms into two grocery sacks. It's such a difference that I was sure I'd done something wrong. So I went back to the pattern and did a little math. For the smallest size (32" bust), you pick up 52 stitches for the sleeves (the sleeves don't have any increases or decreases). For the largest (45" bust), it's 82 stitches. At 4.5 st/in, that's a difference of just over 6 and a half inches! Seriously, that's some bad upsizing. I know that upsizing is difficult (it's the main reason I've not yet submitted a sweater design for publication -- though I suppose in my case it would be "down-sizing" since I design for myself first), but it never hurts to use a little common sense. Because the boobie fairy was kind to me does not mean that I have arms the size of Hulk Hogan's. I could fix it (if you're interested, what I would do is stop the armhole increases at around 60 and then do the other 22 increases [per side] at the edges instead. That would keep the diagonal going there while keeping the sleeve normal sized.), but I'm really just using it to throw on when I'm chilly and I have way too many other things to do.
I'm making progress on my stepmom's socks (there was a set back this morning, but it was only a few rows so I'm just going to pretend like it didn't happen), and I got a few rows done on my Ring cycle (aka Dream Twist) socks. Not as much as I'd hoped, but I'll blog about the opera (which I'm really enjoying) tomorrow, as this post is getting a bit long even for me.
Perfect Patterns
So, for my Ring Cycle socks, I originally thought I'd design a pair, maybe with some cables based on Elsbeth Lavold's stuff. I pulled
the book down and although the cables are just as wonderful and magical as I remember them, none of them struck me as
right. Plus, I'm not sure I really want to design these. Maybe I just want to knit them. So I began searching the interwubs. High and low I searched, and I did find several patterns that I want to use for other yarns at other times (oh, holy crap! I just realized something! Weeeeeeee! I'll tell you in a minute.), but I did not find even a hint of the right pattern for this. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps I should just knit them in plain ol' stocking stitch, boring as it is. I mean, the yarn is certainly beautiful enough that there would be nothing shameful in knitting a plain sock. Maybe, maybe that was the answer. So I turned to other things. One of those things was reading a few blog entries here and there. When I finish something for work I like to reward myself with a blog entry or three. So I was reading a little
Criminy Jickets, which rarely fails to both amuse and inform and he had this picture of
these socks (the Dream Twist pattern in the side bar -- but look what she's working on now!) he was working on. Brilliant! They're perfect! Love them! Can't wait to start! (Huge thanks to Mona for going to the trouble to send the pattern to me as an attachment when I couldn't get it to open after downloading from the site.)
And, as an added bonus, I found the perfect pattern for the latest Socks That Rock club yarn. The yarn is named Firebird, and with the club yarns there's always a related word or phrase printed inside the ball band. Different people get different words. Mine for Firebird was "Phoenix." The pattern I found?
Fawkes. (Okay, if you are one of the three people in the world who has not either read the Harry Potter books or seen the movies, Fawkes is a phoenix.) Brilliant! It's perfect!
So, what I just realized before was that one of the patterns I found but didn't know what I was going to use it for is perfect for the new Cider Moon I just got in Lost. Sweet! Now if only I could find a pattern for my Red Sox Sock...nah, those I'll probably design myself. Fawkes and Red Sox and Lost will just have to wait, though (hey...I can start the Lost socks when next season starts...that's not a bad idea...). Now, back to work on Stepmom Socks. Which will not be called that when I publish the pattern, but I'm not sure what I'm going to actually call them yet.
Yarns
Big news at our house yesterday: Kit's going to be published! He wrote a great little short story for the
Machines of Death anthology (it's new), and his story was picked to be in it! As it should have been -- it really is a good story, and I'm not just saying that because he gives me the good lovin'. Sometimes when I don't have anything to read or I'm tired so I'm just sitting and ruminating, a bit of a particularly good story will pop into my head -- there was a Kurt Vonnegut story that I searched for for years (I thought it was by Harlan Ellison which made it much more difficult to track down), for instance -- and this one keeps doing that. Every time, I think, "Wow -- that was a really good story. Where did I read that again?" and then I remember and the wow gets even bigger. I am exceedingly proud of my darling husband...of course, I always knew it would happen. His writing is too good for it not to have.
And now for the other kind of yarn...I was putting away some skeins this afternoon and came across one that just spoke to me and demanded to be knitted NOW. As luck would have it, the colors make me think of Wagner's Ring series, which I am going to see this weekend. Well, technically I'm only seeing the first half this weekend and then the second half next weekend, but you get the point. So, I am designing some Viking socks to knit on the trains and while sitting and waiting on those days. I doubt that I will be able to knit during the opera itself -- or even that I will want to. Wagner's pretty intense. For those of you keeping track, the yarn is a Merino/Cashmere blend from The Knittery in the Passion Fruit colorway. I purchased it from Sheri at The Loopy Ewe. Here,
have a look (don't worry -- it's all out of stock right now so it's safe to click). I will be diligently knitting on my stepmom's socks tomorrow on the train and Friday on my way in, but will be working from home the rest of the week and we don't have the central air so it is unlikely that I will be touching anything wool in my home until this heatwave breaks. It's not as if my dad and stepmom would be able to wear their wool socks right now anyhow -- they're in Dallas so it's a tad warm for the woolies in July.
I do have new things to listen to while I knit, too -- I have a Barnes and Noble membership (10% off) and they sent me a coupon for an additional 15% off, so I got one of the
Portable Professor CD sets (the one about Greek Gods). I miss school, truly I do. (Mom? Dad? Are you guys okay? Didn't mean to give you a heart attack there.) And with young Becky and another one on the way, it's unlikely that I'll be able to take any classes any time soon. So I thought this might be a good way to keep my critical thinking faculties engaged. I really need to get back into my Latin and German studies as well, but right now that would seriously eat in to knitting time, and it's one of those things that would only take more time as I progressed because I would have to continue to use it and practice it or I'd just be right back where I am now, with a bunch of half-forgotten endings and very little vocabulary. I basically remember enough to get simple jokes in both languages or to make a pretty good guess at what people are saying in the movies if it's very brief. I'd like to be able to be able to do more than that and I'll need to be able to do more than that if I'm going to pursue an advanced degree in the area of my choice. Although my undergrad is in Classics with an Archaeology minor, any advanced degree I pursue would most likely be in Art History, since that's where my main area of interest lies (Specifically in textiles. I know, that completely took you by surprise.). Also, for some reason, an advanced degree in Classics seems at most schools to really be an advanced degree in Latin and Ancient Greek, which is fine, I guess, but I really am not great at languages. It's kind of weird -- I'm pretty good at first, so like my first year of Latin I was feeling pretty confident. After that, it was all downhill. It's like I'm developmentally disabled in other languages -- I'm stuck with the language skills of about a 3rd grader and I find it very difficult to progress beyond that. Ah, well. We can't all be polyglots. Hell, from some of the emails I get, some of us have trouble being monoglots.
Finally, she blogs
Obviously, by "tomorrow" I meant "in about a week." Work is insane right now, so I just haven't been able to turn on the computer without doing something work related until now. And now, I blog.
The ZooLast weekend, we took Becky to the Bronx Zoo. We took her to the much smaller zoo closer to home a few weeks ago and she just loved it, so we thought a trip to the supercrazybig zoo would be a lot of fun. And it was, except that we forgot the diaper bag. So the first hour or so that we were there was spent looking for someplace that had diapers (for those of you who may go in the future and find yourselves in the same sitch, just go to the first aid station by the big eatery in the middle of the zoo). Then it was time for lunch (chicken and fries for the Beckster, which was just fine with her), and then we finally got around to looking at some animals. We saw giraffs and aom sort of antelopes and the mouse house and a camel and a grizzly bear, although I don't hink Becky actually saw the bear because it was sleeping right at the entrance to its cave and blended in very well with the darkness behind it. Then we went to see the African wild dogs, which it turns out are not dogs at all but they look like dogs and to a 14 month old that's all that really matters. So she was pretty happy. By that time Mommy was wearing out and we were worried about Yankee traffic, so we decided to save the tigers and lions and such for the next visit and headed on out. I have to say, the map is very misleading as to the size of the zoo -- makes it look much larger than it is. We were constantly surprised as we were looking for things that appeared on the map to be way far ahead of where we were and then ended up being just a few feet away. Very odd.
Becky at the storeI have no idea what I was going to write about this, or even which store I was talking about. Maybe our trip to Trader Joe's last week, wherein she played with an apple the whole time we walked around the store -- "apple' is her favorite word right now, next to "no" of course -- and then got a "lello" balloon on the way out. I took her on the way to daycare, and her face just lit up when we got out of the car and I put her in the shopping cart. Must do that more often.
Fantabulous PackageMy no longer
Secret Pal sent me a ton of really great stuff, as you can see here:
My favorite is the lovely jewelry (including the stitch markers), which Kayt made herself, followed closely by the gorgeus zipper bag that Kayt's mom made for me in honor of my pregnancy. Thanks, Kayt and Kayt's mom! Of course, I love the other stuff, too, especially the yarn (but not excluding the much-needed DPN wallet, the fun books, and the Burt's Bees) -- one can never have too much Lorna's Laces, and the pink stuff is just luscious. I may make my hospital socks out of that, and a matching pair for Becky...and if New Baby's a girl and I have enough yarn, a matching pair for her, too. Or maybe a little hat for her. If it's a her.
New BabyNo real news here -- I continue to grow and have headaches, and every time I think about complaining about a headache, I remember that at this point in my pregnancy with Becky I could barely get off the couch from nausea, and I'm thankful for the headache. I did not get yelled at for gaining too much weight at my doctor visit, so that was nice.
Knitting StuffI am: finished with the foot of my stepmom's sock; done with one side of the applied I-cord on the Leaf jacket; casting on for a maternity sweater (see a pic
here); and have been sucked into the MS3 KAL (Mystery Stole 3 Knit Along). Darn that
Yarn Harlot (thought: for a knitter, shouldn't it be 'make that Yarn Harlot darn!'? Because darning sucks.). Basically, you get a "clue" every week, and you do that bit of the stole, until it's complete. Because the woman who runs is is cool, she's posting the clues every Friday, except for when Harry Potter comes out, and then she's going to post a clue tha Friday but not again until two Fridays after so we all have time for both knitting and Harry. Also, this year's stole involves some beading, which is new for me and should be interesting. I bought both beads and yarn (because I'm already two weeks behind and had no appropriate yarn with adequate yardage in stash -- seriously, I looked, and even considered pirating some yarn that is definitely spoken for as well as some 100% wool that I bought to use as warp and which I really know deep down I can't knit with, but I came to my senses) from a new-to-me online store that sells, guess what, both beads and yarn...and has a really good prices on a lot of their yarn. It's called
Earth Faire, and I got
this yarn along with some coordinating beads. I was tempted by a lot of other stuff, but I'll have to go back for it later.
Best laid plans
I almost forgot to post again and now I'm tired and a little brain-fried, so this is about as much as you're going to get for right now. I promise a nice long post tomorrow about such fun things as the zoo, Becky at the store, and the absolutely fantabulous package my Secret Pal sent me. See you then!
