Jennifer Knits

Sheep Heid

2012-02-01T16:23:00.002Z

Back in November I posted a quick note that I'd finished Kate Davies'Sheep Heid tam. Well, it's finally sunny (though cold!) and I have the lighting to take a few pictures:

That last picture is the glass mixing bowl I balanced on my yarn swift to simulate a head. The one from the inside was before I wove in the ends (72 of them!). It's a tiny bit loose on my head, which is perfect as I like to wear a cotton headband under wool hats so they don't feel itchy on my face. If I were to knit it again I'd probably use a 2x2 rib on the brim for a slightly snugger fit. You can see some of the stitches aren't quite even but I figure that will block out the next time I wash it.

All in all I cannot say enough good things about this pattern. I love it. Browns and creams aren't particularly my colours but it's my default hat and four months later, I still grin like a loon whenever I think about it. It's my first stranded colour-work where I feel like I understand the tension issues - my earlier efforts all pull tight.

Flurries Cowl and the Great Cowl KAL

2012-02-01T14:28:00.000Z

You might think that, with two pairs of socks in progress, a hooded scarf on the needles, and yarn either acquired for specific projects (a sweaters for my husband and one for my self; mittens for Aged Parent) or less specific projects (socks! socks socks socks socks, socks! Well, at least three pairs) that I wouldn't be looking for new projects. Though, to be fair, if you actually thought that you're probably not a knitter or otherwise crafty.

In my defense, I didn't go looking for patterns, but one (well, five really) jumped out at me from behind a bush (RSS feed) and, what can I say other than that I'm a sucker for a free pattern, especially one that's only free for a limited time? I've recently downloaded The Sexy Knitter's thummedMuffalette, Kate Davies' Fair IsleMucklemuff and Mary Jane Mucklestone's matching Muckle-mitts*, all Christmas or New Year's presents and thus they free for a limited time.

Those are not my current projects (though they've all been queued because they're lovely and I don't have a single muff** and now I have very different patterns for two of them!). My current project is a slightly different proposition: Liz Abinante of Feministy is doing The Great Cowl KAL, a series of five cowl KALs with the first one Flurries Cowl currently being free. If you knit it and submit a picture by the deadline, 8 February, you get the pattern for the next cowl for free. The cowls are all listed in the original post, it's not a mystery game, and if you miss a cowl you can buy the subsequent pattern and still earn the following ones. Isn't that nifty? Add in that the first cowl calls for Brioche stitch, one I've been wanting to try, and I had to cast on:

I've decided I really like the concept of giving a pattern away for free for a limited time, and not just because I like free stuff***: it's a reward for fans who pay attention, a way to attract new people as your existing fans tell their friends about this limited-time offer, and, importantly, when the pattern is no longer free, when you're asking strangers to pay for it, there are already a slew of projects and feedback with a variety of yarns alternatives and proven modifications. You basically turn your fans into Beta Testers (not to be confused with test knitters who provide a valuable service, one worthy of remuneration) and increase the value of a given pattern.

~ * ~

* if you read further through her blog, May Jane Mucklestone does a little tutorial on after-thought thumbs, well worth the read: prepping, picking up, and fixing holes

** don't be dirty

*** free doesn't necessarily correlate with "good", know what I mean? Also, I am entirely in favour of paying designers for patterns I like so that they can afford to design more things that I like. It's win-win.

Things I don't have the energy to expound upon

2012-01-30T19:03:00.000Z

A blog post of mine from last November currently has the highest page views because of a footnote where I mention a halloween costume as seen on The Big Bang Theory that's adorable and, based on googling, doesn't exist. It seems lots of other people are googling for this costume as well and get my lament instead. Oops.

~ * ~

My father is in hospital. There's a whole thing but I'm exhausted from my first day back at work after our honeymoon (4hrs and I'm dead on my feet - how did I used to do this 40hrs/week?) and I can't be arsed to rehash it all again. His condition is currently stable and the prognosis is optimistic. I'm soliciting well-wishes for him and especially for my mother but request that they not be wasted on me.

~ * ~

My FiL's 88th birthday was Friday (my husband's birthday was Thursday) so we had him over for Sunday dinner. I made a beef mince shepherd's pie served with mashed carrots, and a treacle tart with ice cream for pudding. It was my first treacle tart, both making and eating and while it's not something I would go out of my way to eat, I can't seem to stop nibbling at it. Odd.

~ * ~

My friend and I finally exchanged Christmas presents on Friday - I made a pair of mitts for her, acrylic as she's allergic to wool, and I hope to actually write up the pattern at some point. She gave me a 1930's-esk, peacock feather-esk locket in silver and emerald. It's not something I ever would have bought for myself, but it's lovely and I've worn it every day since. I am really picky about jewellery and tend to wear the same couple of pieces and hate everything else (or think it's "nice but not for me") and this makes two things she's given me that have gone into heavy rotation.

~ * ~

I bought a pair of jeans and a cardigan, both on sale, with my own money. This whole having-a-job-and-being-able-to-buy-things thing is nice. Not that my husband begrudges me his money, but it's not the same. The cardigan is a short-sleeve, hooded, knit one with one tog at the neck and open the rest of the way. It's cute and a nice colour, but not, I think, something I'm likely to wear out of the house. It's acrylic so not overly warm (hence, cheap) and I really don't get the button just at the top and hanging open the rest of the way thing. I'm sure it's flattering for some people but I'm not them and it feels like it's the only style sweater currently being made - both store-bought and patterns. This is right up there with "skinny jeans".

Burns Night

2012-01-26T17:57:00.002Z

Yesterday was the anniversary of Robert Burns' birth, which is a bit of an unofficial holiday in Scotland, celebrated with the "traditional" dinner of haggis, neeps (turnips), and tatties (potatoes), and of course the reading of such poems as the Address to a Haggis, Auld Lang Syne, and the Selkirk Grace:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Some friends of ours tweeted that they were hosting a Burns night with regular and veggie haggises and extra seats around the table (though these turned out to be on the sofa) and would anyone care to join them. My response was somewhat more enthusiastic than Chris' as I think he more accurately judged how tired we'd be our first full day home, but I fluttered my lashes and he replied that we'd be attending.

The food was wonderful - I had the veggie haggis as I think sheep are for wool, not eating, and Chris got the regular stuff which he continues to claim to enjoy - and the company moreso. The 13-year-old twin daughters of the house led a protracted game of "I Spy" that got squirrelier and squirrelier as the night progressed. My objects included "slacks", "mortar", "plinth", "lintel", and "soda" occasionally counting on my American words to confound the Brits. The curtain ties were the object in question twice, first as "tie backs" and later as "sashes" and at various times we debated whether you could see things such as photosynthesis or light (I reckon yes and no, respectively). It also brought us a variety of philosophical conversations:
"What would you call those?"
"Daisies."
"They're not daisies!"
"You didn't ask what they are, you asked what I would call them."

Poor Chris spent most of the evening dozing on the sofa or quietly playing with his phone, as is his wont around crowds. I was asked to declaim a poem, specifically "Lines on the Fall of Fyers Near Loch-Ness" which was a bit of a gimmie, being mostly in "English" and not Scots:

Among the heathy hills and ragged woods
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,
Where, thro' a shapeless breach, his stream resounds.
As high in air the bursting torrents flow,
As deep recoiling surges foam below,
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends,
And viewles Echo's ear, astonished, rends.
Dim-seen, through rising mists and ceaseless show'rs,
The hoary cavern, wide surrounding lours:
Still thro' the gap the struggling river toils,
And still, below, the horrid cauldron boils

Lots of Yarn

2012-01-25T16:18:00.000Z

My husband and I returned last night from our lovely Madeiran honeymoon* and I have lots of yarn related things to catch up on, though very little knitting to show for my time.

First off, my Jameison & Smith sweater yarn arrived. I spent the first week of the New Year glaring at everyone who rang the doorbell who wasn't delivering my sweater yarn which, surprisingly, was a lot of people. (My husband orders a lot of things, especially business supplies, online - Inverness may be the hub of the Highlands but it's not exactly a booming metropolis. Also, living without a car, it's a lot easier to have things come to us.) It didn't show up until Saturday, while I was running around trying to get everything ready to have downstairs painted whilst we were gone. So, Yay! it arrived and I no longer needed to worry about it and Boo, by the time it arrived I didn't have time to do more than smoosh the package and pet the wool once or twice and I will continue to be too busy for a while yet.

One of the frowned-at deliveries was yarn (which really was a Yay! except it wasn't the built-up-in-my-mind yarn), from The Sock Yarn Shop, owned by the lovely Pip (and she's currently doing a yarn give-away on her blog). This really wasn't frowned at at all, not even a little bit. How can you frown at sock yarn? I bought four skeins of yarn: 100g of Schoppel Wolle Admiral in black, for work socks; two 50g skeins of Reggia Extra-Twist Merino in "Petrol" which is a teal for me; and a 100g skein of Opal's new Vincent van Gogh in Red Vineyard for my husband. I've used Opal before for my Monkey socks and mitts but the other yarns are all new to me. Pip also threw in a wee little tote. These were all purchased with my money, earned at my job, which made both me and my husband very happy.

That was before I left. We didn't find yarn in Madeira (though I kept seeing twisted up cotton scarfs in shop windows and thinking they were hanks of yarn and getting excited), though people were selling hand-knit things such as hats and ponchos. None of the people I saw knitting spoke English and I don't speak Portuguese so I wasn't able to ask them where they purchased their yarn. Sadness. Embroidery is really big in Madeira, but I didn't see anywhere to buy thread or even little "embroider your own hanky" kits. I would've liked to buy a kit, too**.

We flew in and out of Glasgow and I was delighted, on the way back, to stop in The Yarn Cake which handly is both a very nice yarn shop and a lovely wee café. My first order of business was to exchange my KnitPro 3.25mm interchangeable needles that snapped. She let me exchange them for metal ones as I'm now leery of the colourful birch needles, at least on the smaller sizes. I also got metal tips in 3.75mm, and the rosewood "square" needles in 6.5mm to fill in the empty spaces in the DellaQ interchangeable needle organizer that my wonderful husband gave me for Christmas. I was hoping to pick up some 1.75mm circs for sock knitting but she doesn't carry anything bellow 2.00mm, obviously not suffering from my large-gauge-despite-feeling-like-I-have-a-death-grip-on-the-needles problem.

For Christmas I knit an aran hat for Aged Parent (my FiL) out of Shilasdair's Baby Camel yarn (modelled bellow by my husband). He had a store-bought aran cap in a natural cream but he'd at various times complained that it was itchy and not his colour, but that he needed a thick, warm, doubled over at the brim hat to keep his ears warm (he'd almost lost them to frost bite, in Canada, during WWII). This (outrageously expensive) sea-coloured baby camel yarn seemed just the thing with which to replace it. He cried when he unwrapped it (the men in my husband's family are emotional) and has since told everyone, every single person he's met that I knit his hat and isn't it amazing. This man deserves more hand knit gifts, starting with a pair of mitts in a similar colour-way of Shilasdair Aran lambswool for his birthday. Which is Friday (today's Wednesday) though I won't see him till Sunday.

I also finally, four years after first seeing the pattern and thinking Want!, I finally bought yarn to knit the Pfeiffer Falls hooded scarf: seven skeins of New Lanark Mills Aran in Tartan Green.

~ * ~

* more on that later

** I did buy two hankies, but that's for the honeymoon post.

Samuel Pepys

2012-01-01T14:33:00.001Z

I've been following Samuel Pepys' twitter account (currently tweeting 1669 though the description still says 1668), taken from Pepys' Diary, and occasionally reading the more salacious tweets to my husband so that we may together boggle over his womanising ways. Remembering the scandal resulting from Elizabeth catching her husband in a compromising position with her companion, Deborah Willet - and the dizzying back and forth of would he give her up or wouldn't he - my husband purchased an annotated copy of the journal* for me for Christmas**.

I am most of the way through the 150-odd pages of introductions and commentaries and today read the first entries*** and have already been chastised for reading them privately in the bath (I like to start the year in the manner I intend to continue) rather than reading aloud of it at bedtime. I cautioned my husband that it wouldn't all be scandalous affairs and household strife to which he replied that he expects it will be a lot of "'tonight we had mutton. I did not care for it.'"**** "Actually tonight they're having turkey."

A spoiler, I know, but I kept both the fact that it's leftover turkey and that Elizabeth burnt her hand in its fixing a surprise for later.*****

~ * ~

* as Pepys himself most often referred to his diary

** or rather Volume 1, being the year of the lord 1660.

*** being the editors' one-page summary of the political situation (Cromwell's government has crumbled but the monarchy has not yet been restored), Pepys' proto-entry summarizing his health (physical and financial) and that of the country, and the entry for 1 January, 1660.

**** I'm an American. I may pick up British vocabulary but I will never abandon my American punctuation and nested quotes.

***** Until he reads this. Honey, don't read this.

Sweaters Intimidate Me

2011-12-31T19:18:00.000Z

My miss-givings about knitting a sweater are less about the technical construction (though the idea of having to do the maths and worry about fit do intimidate me) than the fear that after all that time and effort* it won't fit or, whether it fits or not, it won't be flattering. Add to that a lifetime's desire to be thinner and fear of getting rotund-er and knitting a sweater seems destine to be a source of regret.

One of my goals in life, not a New Year's Resolution, is to love myself for who I am rather than holding out for a better version of me, one more worthy of love. Assuming there is a static goal-line one can cross and believe that now, finally, now one is worthy of love and happiness and acceptance (both observational and personal experience inclines me to think there is not), even if such a prize were achievable, I personally respond very badly to such negative incentives. I get very stubborn when told I can't or shouldn't do things. I'm sure you're all shocked to hear I can be so contrary, but I really dig my heels in and become "[as biddable] as any mule in Christian-dome".

My weight has, without particular effort on my part, been stable these past six weeks. That's not a considerable length of time, but it does seem to indicate that this is a weight my body is comfortable with and thus a shape I'm willing to throw time and effort at. I always prefer to wear quality clothing and shapes that flatter, but it's hard to justify investing in a wardrobe rather when one doesn't know if one will continue to lose or start to regain**.

But even if my shape changes, I can't keep waiting for tomorrow. This is the year I start knitting sweaters and if they don't fit in a year or five years, well I'll knit more sweaters. And I'll be a better sweater knitter in a year and I'll keep this sweater for when I pass through this weight again***.

~ * ~

* the cost of the yarn, aside from the initial investment, doesn't bother me as a bad sweater could always be frogged and the yarn repurposed.

** for the curious I am neither at my lowest nor my heaviest, but after gaining 2lbs/1kilo for the last five months this six week platform seems significant.

*** I tend not to follow trends, preferring a 1940s aesthetic, so I'm not worried about styles becoming unfashionable.

NYR: Pattern Selection

2011-12-29T23:57:00.000Z

Having resolved to knit two sweaters (one for me, one for DH) and add to my sock repertoire, I have spent a fair amount of time reading my sock and sweater books, flipping through magazines, and, most of all, creating filter after filter in Ravelry. Patterns were matched to yarns, measurements and meterages were determined, yarns were selected and discarded based on price, reviews, colours and finally availability. This brings me to a tangent:

On the whole, having an online store reject attempts to add quantities of yarn not actually in possession of the shop is a good thing. It would, however, be better if stock quantities could be determined prior to trying to add them to my "basket". As opposed to manually adding each colour I like only to determine, time and again, they don't have the requisite quantities. In half a dozen colours, plus a few I didn't really like that much anyway. Had that effort resulted in purchasing yarn my irritation would have been tempered by the joyful anticipation of nice, affordable yarn. As it is, I'm just irritated.

But I have selected my patterns and my yarns: for my sweater I'm trying February Fitted Pullover by Amy Herzog. Even as a non-knitter of sweaters, her name had been increasingly familiar with very positive associations. She has a few designs that don't interest me, but when I read the descriptions I found they weren't knit with me in mind (sweaters for the bottom-heavy, rather than my very full hour-glass). It's a nice that she and I agree on styles both for and not for my figure. I ultimately decided against a sweater from Little Red in the City as they are none of them quite what I want for my first sweater. Ysolda's day will come.

For my DH I picked Terry's Pullover by Carol Fuller from Interweave Knit's Holiday Gifts 2009. I found it in my Ravelry filtering, recognized it as the one Socktopus just knit for her husband, and it was already high in my Ravelry queue - despite going through yesterday and significantly reducing the number of items in said queue. My husband has a generously sized nose and the shawl collar should allow easy clearance for pulling it on and off.

For both sweaters I ordered Jamieson & Smith's Shetland Aran, in a tealy-blue for me and a dark sage green for DH. I used their Shetland Supreme for my Sheep Heid Tam so it's a brand with which I am familiar and I like the idea of knitting with affordable wool from local(ish) sheep (given that my efforts for even more affordably priced Knit Picks yarn from the mothership were for naught). Now it's just the joyous anticipation of wool and the finishing the projects in progress so I can start my sweaters.

Except it's the Thursday night between Christmas and the New Year so there's a very real chance that J&S are closed for the holidays. Even if they are open, I don't think they can get my order put together, packed up, and ready to go out in time for Friday's last collection given that the Shetland Islands aren't exactly a renowned transportation hub. Saturday is Hogmanay, New Year's Eve, traditionally a bigger deal than Christmas*, and New Year's day falls on a Sunday which means the British bank holiday is observed on Tuesday - 2 January, Monday, is a Scottish bank holiday. So, assuming J&S is open tomorrow and they can process my order before final collection, the absolute earliest I can expect my happy parcel is Thursday the 5th. Did I mention we're leaving for our honeymoon on the 8th?

Fortunately, I have the yarn for my next sock project: Knot Socks by Nancy Bush from Sock Knitting Master Class (see, a pattern from one of my new books!) using some purple Araucania Ranco that I purchased for myself when getting the replacement yarn for to knit replacement Brainless socks for my DH who accidentally felted the first pair. The pattern is cuff-down with a cast-on (double start), heel turn (square), and toe (star) I've not tried before.

~ * ~

* Christmas was actually banned in Scotland for almost 400 years, until the 1950s, because it was considered a "papist" holiday. Presbyterians really don't like papists.

New Year's Resolutions?

2011-12-28T15:55:00.000Z

Tis the season for knitters to plan their yearly knitting and make resolutions such as "Knit things with yarn I already own and no buying new yarn" or "knit at least one thing each month" often selecting the patterns and yarn in advance. I neither have a significant stash, nor a problem with not feeling like I've knit enough, but I do have some specific skills I would like to acquire, namely sock techniques and (gulp!) sweater knitting.

Both socks and sweaters span a range of skill levels from "suitable for a competent beginner" to "seriously mad skills, yo!" and while I while I have some skills my repertoire of sock construction techniques is somewhat limited* and I have zero** sweater experience.

For Christmas, my DH gave me Ysolda Teague's Little Red in the City, a book about sweater modification (with seven patterns) and just today I picked up the digital copy of Ann Budd's Sock Knitting Master Class which covers a variety of sock construction techniques, both cuff-down and toe-up and a variety of cast-on, bind-off, heel, and toe methods. Add to this my Best of Knitter's Magazine's Guy Knits, and the form of my resolution becomes clear: Knit a sweater each for myself and my husband, and work my way through Sock Knitting Master Class.

My current method of knitting is to alternate between knitting for myself and my husband, so my master class goal is not so much to knit all 18 socks as, 365 days from now, being able to say "look at the new techniques I have tried". And two finished sweaters.

~ * ~

* one pair cuff-down socks, rounded heel, wedge toe, kitchener BO; several pairs toe-up, short row and Turkish CO, rounded heel, Judy's Surprisingly Stretchy BO

** I have knit three baby sweaters using different techniques but they're on a completely different scale and "shaping" isn't particularly important.

A Long-Overdue Post on Wool Socks

2011-12-02T14:58:00.001Z

On the Friday when I got my glasses (did I post about that?) and my job, I also bought several pairs of wool socks and tights. I know, I know - this is a violation of the "only own hand-knit socks" movement that I'm not a part of, but I spent a month working on the Purple Socks and, alternating between a pair for my husband and a pair for myself means a drawer full of (only?) hand-knit socks is not in my immediate future but my need for warm footwear is ever-present. I cheated and bought socks and I am not sorry.

My quest was actually for wool tights as the four pairs (two black, one purple, one brown) of wool tights I purchased for the winter of 2009 are starting to give up the ghost. One pair of black tights got thrown out for having holes, the other pair has some alarmingly transparent patches, the purple ones are too big, and the brown ones are, well, brown. My husband conceded that wool tights are a necessity and two winters was good value for money and I went to purchase more.

I only managed to find wool tights at H&M and M&S (it must be an initialization thing) so I bought a black pair from H&M and a navy pair from M&S, both significantly wool and not "wool-like" or "met a wool fibre once" or "wool content is measured in single digits" which is what most retailers seems to mean with the word. I'm beginning to understand that the UK doesn't have advertising laws stipulating that the word wool refer to, you know, actual wool*.

While at H&M I also found two pairs of wool socks, each around 75% wool/25% nylon which is my preferred fibre for knitting socks (the nylon adds structural integrity, important for socks). One pair is a crew-length fair isle sock in cranberry and cream, with lots of loose ends inside for added warmth. The other is a knee-high cabled creation in cream. They're both warm and slightly itchy, which is pretty much how I feel about my hand-knit socks. Best of all they came in lots of sizes rather than the usual "one size fits some" of retail socks. For those of you who want nice wool knit socks but lack the skills or desire to knit your own, these are perfect.

In other news, I did finish my Purple Brainless with pictures possibly to follow and am knitting a replacement pair of the Husband's Brainless that the eponymous sock-wearer accidentally felted in the wash.

~ * "

*Tangentally, I'm not one to get bent out of shape if you use wool as a compound noun to describe another type of fleece ("angora wool" or "cashmere wool") out with that, wool means something and it means the fleece of a sheep.

There are workmen in my living room

2011-12-02T12:01:00.001Z

Chris and I decided, after getting married last June, that we'd take the money people gave us and have a fireplace installed in the lounge. The house had one when he moved in but it wasn't very good and, after he bought it from his landlady, he had the fireplace removed. Fast-forward to having someone with whom to cuddle in front of a fire and a better fireplace seems the thing to have.

We did some research, picked a design, had a consultation and made a down-payment back in September and finally, finally, today they're starting. I said I wanted a fireplace before it started to snow and the weather seems to be cooperating. Yay?

Anyway, there are workmen in my living room and it's rather nosy (understatement) in the house today. Ginger Kitty is hiding under the duvet in our bedroom but Princess occasionally comes just far enough down the stairs to peer through the railing and see what's going on.

Speaking of Princess, she's poorly again. We ran out of the last bag of food and started a new one (a different flavour, turkey - we always switch when we finish a bag) and she ate fine Monday night but then on Tuesday she stopped eating. The brand we use switches kibble shape with flavour so I bought different food (chicken) for her in case it was the shape she didn't like but she wouldn't eat that either (though Ginger Kitty decided that whatever Princess had must be better than what he has* and refused to eat until we gave him the chicken stuff but now he won't eat until he's sure there's not something better he could have instead). We gave them some tuna because Princess hadn't eaten anything all day and got her to eat a small portion.

The next day I suggested we feed her some of the kitten food (also chicken) we still have as it's small kibble and easy to chew and she ate a little bit but then turned her nose up the rest of the day, even refusing to drink tuna water when offered. Chris was beside himself at this point, googling symptoms right and left - never a good idea - and I bought a bag of fish-flavoured kibble in case it was the flavour she was objecting too and she eat a few pieces but gave up on that as well.

Princess is not a large cat to start with - only 3.3kilos on the best of days - and she's never been a good eater but she wasn't acting like her normal finicky self. She'd get excited any time we walked near the food bowls and bark encouragingly if we stopped to fill them up but then she'd change her mind and scoot away and look like the saddest, hungriest kitty in the world. Normal, finicky Princess would be completely indifferent to food.

I held her with her mouth open while Chris looked for ulcers or tooth decay but we didn't see anything. She still wasn't eating though, so I took her to the vet. She meowed piteously when I put her in her carrying case and the whole taxi ride over but when the vet let her go and she'd decided she'd had enough of a cuddle with me she hopped back in and was mostly quiet on the ride home. Poor Princess. The vet found some inflammation around some of her back teeth but no fever (Princess really didn't like that part), no pained reactions to having her tummy poked and prodded, and no signs of dehydration. We're unaware of anything she may have eaten or licked to cause problems (eating parsley, the vet said, is odd but not harmful). The vet gave Princess a shot each of antibiotics and steroids, scheduled an appointment to get Princess' teeth cleaned on Monday**, and sent us home with a couple tins of "yummy" gentle gushy food and oral antibiotics. The antibiotics, of course, have to be administered with food. "Just squirt it on her food!" they helpfully kept advising me, somehow missing the point of why were were there.

Chris tried her on the new gushy food last night with some success until she realized that Ginger Kitty was nowhere to be seen and came upstairs to find him, locked in the bedroom with me. We tried her again later, with tuna for Ginger Kitty, and he went om-nom-nom-nom but she wouldn't eat and kept looking at his food. I snagged a chunk of tuna from Ginger Kitty's bowl and offered it to her, but Chris smeared it with her gushy food and she still wouldn't eat it. I took Ginger Kitty's entire bowl away from him** and gave it to Princess who promptly face planted. I gave the gushy-smeared tuna to Ginger Kitty and he stopped giving me Saddest Kitty in the World eyes and ate with gusto.

That's about where things stand now. Princess doesn't want to eat the gushy food (or any of the kibble) but will occasionally deign to a small portion of tuna and sooner or later Ginger Kitty eats anything we leave unguarded. The vet suggested giving her a little ice cream as a treat; we'll pick some up when we go out tonight and see if that helps at all.

~ * ~

* a position he maintains even when have the same food.

** her teeth are in good shape, but some animals react badly to even the slightest build-up of plaque. We'll see if that helps.

*** I love my mellow Ginger Kitty so much.

Gainful Employment

2011-11-22T12:27:00.001Z

I got a job! I had interviewed, probably back in September for a part time position at an international cosmetics* company but, alas, didn't get the job. I avoided the shop for a while but on Friday, when I was in the mall to have my eyes checked, I stopped in to pick something up. The manager remembered me, asked if I was still looking for work, and if I wanted a seasonal position starting Monday (yesterday). Um, yeah! I spent the rest of the day buzzing around, planning celebratory things to buy with my first pay cheque (none of which I've bought yet - see, I have self-restraint).

Yesterday was my first day, a 4hr shift. I'm guaranteed 4hrs a week which is a minimum and the opposite of the US system which seems more geared towards maximums. This week, for example, I have another 4-hr shift scheduled for Friday. The schedule is called the "rota". That was a bit of confusion as my request for the "skedu-ol"** was met with blank looks and I tried to talk my way around what a schedule is ("uh, hours and days when one will be working?") while miming a sort of calendar. Rota. Right. The day was a bit higgledy-piggledy, or as my manager put it, "we're all at sixes and sevens right now."

I spent most of my day restocking shelves, which is generally a good way to learn the product. I have the advantage of having been a fairly loyal customer for years, but things move around and there's a different level of attention given to browsing and knowing the stock. I didn't get any training on register but I did sell a woman two bottles of perfume (for her mother) and ring her up on my manager's till (while my manager stood next to me and told me which buttons to press). I was also taught how to enter and exit the store without tripping the people-counter which corporate uses to track customers vs sales.

As far as dress code goes, we only explicitly covered the need to keep one's hair back off of one's face and wear "five points" of make-up. Five points wasn't clearly defined, but I took it to mean five items of make-up with things like multiple shades of eye shadow being counted as one. So mascara (ma-SCAR-ah not ma-SCARE-a), eye shadow, foundation, blush, lipstick (lippy). This explains the dichotomy between fully made up faces and less than perfectly coiffed hair and a t-shirt. Normally I'd take a dim view of dress codes requiring make-up but, as part of the job is specifically selling make-up, it seems reasonable. Happily I'll be given "five points" of make-up, hopefully at my discretion. Wearing make-up once or twice a week is "fun dress-up" territory, right?

The other dress code we covered (minus a couple of allusions to not wearing flip flops or sandals) was a seasonal red t-shirt exhorting the happiness to be found in giving CosmeticsCompany gifts. My manager said they originally sent out one size of ridiculously small t-shirts that she wasn't confident would fit an 8 year-old and managed to get some larger ones in. The larger ones are "medium" and don't fit over my considerable bosom so it has been suggested that I just wear a red t-shirt of my own and she'll try and get a larger (x-large) shirt for me. I find it somewhat unlikely that I'm the only medium+ employee on the sales floor.

I also got to watch a Health and Safety video which could have been greatly improved had it delivered on the implied promise of potentially dangerous situations ending badly. The video demonstrated the proper technique for cleaning shelves - almost elbow-length rubber gloves and a clear plastic welder-style face mask (the bit about taking everything off a given shelf, wiping it down, and putting it back was merely implied). The not-properly-instructed-in-H&S employee (who was just wiping around the objects on the shelf) cut his un-gloved hand on a shard of glass and then decided to spray the cleanser directly into the open wound - between sucking on the cut and bandaging it roughly with the dirty cleaning cloth. As you do.

I have a few more seasonal or part time things floating around out there, so hopefully this is the start of a busier, less financially dependant, period in my life.

* in the broader soaps, perfumes, lotions sense of cosmetics in addition to the "make-up" sense

** as opposed to the British "shhed-ule

November is not a good month for socks

2011-11-07T21:25:00.000Z

Remember the Brainless Socks that I knit for my husband? He wore them and gave them back to me for laundering a few times and then he forgot and threw them in the regular wash and, well, felted them. They're much thicker and several sizes smaller than they were, too small for either of our feet. We need a 10yo child to wear them, on a cold day. He's absolutely heart broken about it but fortunately I picked up the yarn at the LYS in town so we went back and bought another skein (plus one for me!) and I'll knit up another pair.

In other news, my Purple Peace socks prooved too small to pull up past my ankle so, after redoing the heel 3 or 4 times, I frogged them and am now using the yarn for a pair of Brainless socks for me (72 stitches, 1.5mm needles). They're knitting up as quickly as one could expect at such a fine gauge. I'll use the (also purple - they only had the green/orange "fern" colourway and purple) yarn I picked up at the LYS for another run at Purple Peace in something resembling gauge. I'd already played with the pattern as much as I was comfortable with my limited (3 pairs finished) sock experience.

I finished my Sheep Heid and it was a joy to knit. I whipped it up in one weekend and could hardly stop myself from knitting one more row so I could watch the pattern progress. At the end I had 75 ends to weave in. Chris counted the cut off ends and gave me a smooch for each one. I was good and didn't cut the ends in half for extra smooches, though we disagreed about the smooch-count so, depending on who you ask, I may have got extras anyway. I apologize for the less-than-stellar photo. I wanted to take better pictures, outdoors and in sunshine, but haven't gotten around to it and I was holding up this post for waiting.

I also finished a Fair Isle hat with ear flaps for Chris. His ears get rather cold and hang out in the gap between his hats and scarves so I adapted a children's pattern for a large adult head. It's a wool/alpaca blend and quite itchy on his delicate skin so we bought a cotton head band for him to wear under the hat. I have one as well and they're perfect for wool-sensitive skin. I still need to knit a pair of convertible mittens for him, and then I will have secured my claim for the title of Best Wife Ever.

I started a scarf I'd been eyeing for years, as part of a scarf and tam set, and it has given me nothing but trouble. I re-knit each section twice to get them right and then realized it was supposed to be knit in garter stitch, not the stockingette I had defaulted to, so I had to frog the whole thing and start over. Now, past the point where I frogged it, I find I'm back to knitting a few rows and ripping back so I'll probably ditch the whole project. The phrase I'm looking for is "Meh.". I'm just not feeling the love, so I'm not really paying attention, and I keep making mistakes. Thus the progress on the Brainless Socks that I can knit while reading.

~ * ~

In other news, our dishwasher is still broken. The repair man came back this morning with the parts he'd ordered last week and fixed the machine and announced that something else was broken and he'd have to order that. Chris, who has been washing dishes twice a day (I dry and put away) declared that if this doesn't do it, he's going to buy whatever washing machine is in stock and can be installed that day and be done with it.

We had Aged Parent*, Chris' father, over for Sunday Dinner last weekend. Oliver and Libby eventually warmed up to his being here and, while they stayed out of his reach, they forgot themselves enough to run around like mad things, much to Aged Parent's amusement. When we saw him yesterday he greeted us with, "how are the maniacs?" We get that a lot, from the very few people who see them with their guard down. We made an Asian-fusion beef and mushroom pie, served with mashed potatoes and buttered Brussel sprouts for dinner. We split the pie filling, freezing half and using the rest for the pie. Of the half we baked we dished out a third and served a third of that to each of us. Chris and I, in our very first forkful, each bit into one of the two star anise seed pods. It's not a very good telling of the story, but I continue to be bemused that, with 1/18th of the pie on our plates we got both seed pods in the first tasting.

After a fortnight of "warm" weather, it's started to be seasonably chilly (happily, given the woollen accessories I want to show off!). Aged Parent called on Sunday to tell us that it was too cold for us to walk over. It was cooler than it had been but still well above freezing. There was a time when I visited Aged Parent on alternate weeks so Chris could have some time with his father and, while Aged Parent would call for the least reason and tell Chris not to risk coming, on the weeks I was to visit, be it floods, fires, or blizzards, nothing would be said of staying home. Guess we know I'm family, now.

* Great Expectations reference

This is turning into a weekly update

2011-10-27T12:12:00.002+01:00

First things first, Princess is doing much better. She's being anointed twice a day - a process she really doesn't like though it validates my daily corporate cuddling (I hold her like a baby and give her skritches until she purrs (and only then will I let her go if she wiggles)). In some ways, Princess is a lot easier with things like this than Ginger Kitty - he's a big scaredy cat and struggles desperately to escape from anything he perceives as threatening, which is pretty much everything*. Princess, otoh, will lie there passively until she thinks you've been lolled into complacency or are distracted and then she'll try and slink off. The ointment we were given (which is to say purchased at no small expense) is marketed for dogs and suggests application before feeding or going for a walk so the pup in question will be distracted from trying to scrape or lick it off. Eating holds very little appeal for our Princess but she's a huge fan of the Magic Red Dot so her evening applications happen immediately proceeding Red Dot Time. Her morning anointing is supposed to come before Treat Time but she's wise to us and has stopped showing up. Ginger Kitty thinks with his tummy and would fall for it every time and twice on Sundays.

~ * ~

My Jamesion & Smith Superior Jumper Weight Yarn finally arrived (though I still haven't received a reply to yesterday's, "You haven't fogotten my order, have you?" email), so I'm finally good to start on my Sheep Heid hat. In the meantime I'd cast on a Peruvian style Fair Isle cap for my Dear Husband but, even though I'm trying to keep the carrying strand loose, it's pulling too tight. Bugger. Mind you, if it's too loose than the stitches will sag and stretch and that's possibly worse. There's a golden tension - I just have to find it.

My Purple Peace socks are growing. I spent most of yesterday redoing the first heel only to rip it back to the gusset before bed. Each time I frog something and redo it I gain a greater understanding of what success - in this case defined as "things being the way I want them to be" - looks like, right?

My yarn swift arrived last week and I had to take it out and play with it right away, winding a skein of Malabrigo Sock Yarn. It works like a dream, though perhaps not a happy one for Ginger Kitty. He paced the perimeter of the room, unable to decide if he should flee or pounce. When I finished, he jumped up on my roll-top to investigate:

~ * ~

Our dishwasher broke on Sunday and the earliest the repair man can make it out is Monday. We've been having a left-overs and take-away week and we're still doing at least two rounds of dishes-washing a day. Chris washes, I dry and put away. There was a small disaster yesterday as Chris, in his over-zealousness, dumped his half-drunk Gin & Tonic down the sink and washed the glass. The ice had melted and he thought it was an abandoned glass of water (forgetting that he'd set it there, on the other counter/worktop moments before). This overly-zealous approach to cleaning up while I'm cooking has often resulted in me exclaiming, "But I was still using that!" Now he knows how it feels.

In other news, Chris got both the new Steve Jobs' biography and his (Chris') new MacBook on Monday. I have a very happy husband - though he keeps the biography face down as the front cover picture is "Scary Steve" and the back cover picture is "Nice Steve". I can't make these things up. Chris has even read a (singular) chapter.

I stalled out on my aSoFaI reread (because I was watching telly while knitting, not because I wasn't interested) but I was able to get into a partial Hollows (by Kim Harrison) reread. I saw that book 9, Pale Demon, had come out in paperback and the kindle price dropped accordingly, so I reread books 5 through 8 and then read book 9 in its entirety on Tuesday. I started Pratchett's latest, Snuff (an ebook I'd pay HC prices for) that evening but decided I'm not yet ready to let go of Rachel Morgan so I've switched back to telly for the time being.

I'm catching up on (A Town Called) Eureka and am halfway through season 4. I didn't recognize Balthazar, from Battlestar Galactica, until he made the crack about hallucinating a "tall blonde in a slinky red dress" and then I could've believe I'd missed it. All I can really say in my defence is that it's been some time since I've seen BSG. I still haven't seen the second half of the fourth (and final) season of that series! I also acquired Castle with Nathan Fillian. I had seen an episode or two before I moved to the UK and have heard nothing but good things about it since. I tried showing an episode to Chris but he didn't seem interested, so I guess that's a "watch while he's at work" series, too.**

~ * ~

* he's actually getting better. Now, instead of bolting for a hiding place in a cupboard, he'll often bolt a few feet and then circle around to see if it was actually threatening or just startling. His orange coat is a Red Herring - this is the real reason he's known as Ginger Kitty.

** Our watch-together series are, currently, Hawaii 5-0, Star Trek TNG (we ran out of ripped Voyager and DS9 so those are paused, as is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, House and Numbers), Stargate:SG1, and The Big Bang Theory. We just watched the NYE and my husband is very sad that the Aquaman costume with sea horse steed doesn't actually exist. Someone get on that!

On Husbands, Socks, Steam and Swifts

2011-10-20T13:55:00.000+01:00

Last night my husband came up to me as I was reading in bed, reported on The Paying of the Bills, and said, "send me the link for the wool for the sheep hat." And my little wifely heart did flip-flops of happiness beneath my breast*. Today, my little wifely hands added the appropriate skeins of Jamieson and Smith (1 ball in each colour) to a shopping cart and took the liberty of ordering them myself because A) it's easier than saving the shopping cart and emailing a link to my husband and then looking over his shoulder while he orders**, B) he defaults to ordering things in his name just as I default to ordering things in my name but I don't open things that arrive in his name unless I'm 100% certain I know what's inside and that it's for me and I like opening things so it needs to be in my name, and C) I still have the debit card from taking Princess to the vet***.

Is that not an amazing hat? I'm really hoping she'll chart matching mittens.

~ * ~

I finished the Brainless Socks (for Husband) - not to be confused with Brainless Husband Socks as that would be something else entirely. I mentioned them previously. They knit up very quickly, though I had to frog my first start after a few inches and switch to a smaller needle. That's my method of swatching for socks as it's no more effort than knitting a small square or tube and has the advantage that, if it's correct, you're already a few inches in. When I started over I decided to do the entire cable pattern with twisted stitches, though I did a straight rib and, if I did that over again I wouldn't. I hadn't done a lot of fibbing so I wasn't cognizant of how twisted verses non-twisted rib would look and I prefer twisted rib. But they look fine and Chris is completely in love with them, and that's what counts.

I didn't really touch my Zum Dirndle socks until yesterday. I twist the yarn as I knit and I can't dangle two-at-a-time socks to un-twist the yarn so I moved one sock to DPNs (bamboo - the only other needles I have in 2.0mm but I'm worried they'll snap if I actually knit on them) and am working on the other sock in magic loop. I'll just have to switch projects around frequently enough that my tension stays even.

I cast on a pair of Wendy D Johnson's A Finer Peace socks using Ripples Crafts BFL sock yarn in "plummy". To get the fabric I want I'm knitting the largest size on 1.5mm needles(!). They'll be amazingly warm but will probably take as many hours as the uber-complicated knee socks. I need to buy thicker sock yarn for faster socks.

~ * ~We received an Amazon gift card from Shaun and Uli and I did a happy dance because it was a lot of money for spending on SF/F novels and, as my DH isn't much of a reader, that meant it was all for me. Chris insisted it was meant for wedding registry purchases (ignoring the fact that if they wanted to pick something off of our Amazon registry they could've done and the fact that Shaun confirmed it was intended as Book Money) so we each got to pick something "for the household" - a yarn swift for me and a milk steamer for him.

See, a certain fiancé-cum-husband had a very fancy, very expensive coffee machine that he'd had for years and loved. It was the kind that you fill with beans and then push one of a handful of buttons, letting it know if you'd like one or two shots and if they should be shots or Americano and I don't even know what all else, except it also had a milk steamer. Only it stopped working so my fiancé-cum-husband bought a new coffee machine, one that doesn't grind it's own beans but still has a milk steamer, packed up the broken one, and sent it off for repairs. Fast-forward about four months and his coffee machine is finally finished and eventually shipped back (with instructions to use filtered water and occasionally descale it) and my husband put the replacement unit in my office**** and set the original one up in his. All was once more perfect in his world except...Remember the new coffee machine? The cute little blue one? Well, it has a better milk steamer than the big expensive one and this occasionally causes husbands to pout and dream of better milk steamers. That's why we had to use my SF/F novel money to buy a milk steamer.

Obviously no explanation is needed for buying a yarn swift.

* I'm having a flowery kind of day. Aren't you?

** I trust my husband but I don't trust teh interwebs

*** She's been naughty and scratched all the fur off one spot under her chin. She did this last October and we took her to the vet and got some ointment and it healed and everything was fine and dandy. We noticed on Sunday that she'd done it again and told her that if she didn't leave it alone and let it heal she'd have to go to the vet and it was bleeding again yesterday (Wednesday) so the threatened trip to the vet happened and we once more have ointment and a dreaded Cone of Shame which is the current "if you don't leave it alone...!" threat. The vet says it's probably a seasonal dermatitis issue as she is otherwise the picture of health and I suspect it will be an annual pilgrimage. Or tri-annual as, this time, I'm not going to throw the ointment away until it expires (in 2014).

**** Originally he was going to keep the new one and sell the old one but he may need to establish an office in town so he's keeping the old one and keeping the new one for that eventual office. I occasionally ask, "are you sure?" but mostly just smile and nod.

Beginner Projects

2011-10-07T18:03:00.000+01:00

Having just retaught myself how to crochet, I've been thinking about how I learn to do things, specifically crafts, and I realized something: I don't like beginner projects. Full stop, end of - I don't do them. I understand the point, mastering one step before moving on to the next, but I don't want to invest time in a pointless finished project. This is why most of my crafting abilities are self-taught rather than learned at my mother's knee, even though I grew up in a crafty house.

My mother, when it came time to pass on her DIY skills, picked age-appropriate projects similar to the ones on which she cut her crafty teeth. When I wanted to learn to sew she bought a print half-apron for me - it was one piece printed on a single sheet of fabric and one would cut it out, sew the waist-band in half lengthwise and hem the edge of the apron. I think I got as far as cutting it out and pinning the waistband. I didn't want an apron, let alone one that looked like that apron, and even though I wanted to learn to sew, I refused to work on the project. That was the end of the sewing lessons.

Fast foward to Uni/college where I started dancing (Irish ceili, English country, and Victorian ballroom) and wanted appropriate costumes. That summer I sat down at my mother's sewing machine and made a Victorian ballgown from the underwear out, buying only the shoes and corset. I started with the bloomers and chemise (with pin-tucks and lace!), then a 5' diameter hoopskirt (11 hoops), a skirt (cartridge pleats), a ballgown bodice (boned, lined and trimmed in lace), and then a day-bodice with velvet trim. I also made a flannel-lined wool cloak and a plain chemise and bloomers for Renfaire. That was my beginner project. Did I do everything right? No. Did I make mistakes? Yes. Did I ask a lot of questions and redo things? You betcha. But I sat down to make myself a ballgown and by-golly I did it.

I am the same way with cooking, with knitting, even with programming. I want to hit the ground running and I have boundless faith in my ability to figure things out (or ask for help when I need it). My first knitting project following a pattern was a cable-edged shawl. Uber-complicated? No, but certainly something of which I could - was and am - be proud.

Socktoberfest 2011

2011-10-03T11:49:00.002+01:00

It is finally Socktober and that means my first ever Socktoberfest! I know most of you aren't as excited as I am, but as I've decided to be a great knitter of socks (they're faster and cheaper than sweaters but still have potential daily use unlike shawls) having a community ready to uber-obsess about knitting socks is pretty darn nifty.

Socks in Progress:
- Zum Dirndl for me, using Wollmeise Twin in a gorgeous blue. I've turned the heel and am starting up the leg which means adding another three charts, each with a different repeat length. These are officially out of the "mindless knitting" category which is why I've cast on...
- Brainless for my husband, using Araucania Ranco Multy in Fern which is a perfect colour for October, a medley of greens and oranges just like the world outside.
Both socks are from the same designer,Yarnissima, and have the same elements but rendered differently. Both socks have a cable along each side, but mine are twisted and symmetrical and his are regular and identical. My gussets had a bit of lace and more twisted stitches, his don't. It's a bit odd doing the complicated socks first, and then the easy ones, but it adds to the "mindless" aspect of the knitting.

In other October knitting news, there was a Gansey Festival (conference) in Inverness over the weekend, celebrating all things Gansey (also known as Guernsey in other parts of the ~~world~~ British Isles). The website was a bit confusing, saying there was free admission to X, Y, and Z and listing various admission rates (weekend, daily, half-daily) and fees for taking the classes. I figured I'd go and see what there was to see and hope to purchase some yarn: I want to knit a sweater but haven't yet committed to a pattern. I wrote down yarn requirements for two projects I want to start: a hooded scarf and the Sade hat and mittens for the Google+ October KaL. Did I purchase yarn for either of these projects? Of course not! I bought sock yarn (thus tying it all back to Socktoberfest): three skeins of Ripples Crafts BFL/nylon sock - two stripy skeins for Chris and one purple skein for me. There wasn't enough bulky yarn in one colourway to knit the scarf and the only worsted weight yarn for the hat and mittens was extra scratchy and not something I'd want against my skin. I'll keep looking.

Other than yarn purchased, how was the Gansey Fest? Well, I think it would've been better without Chris. He got home and swore never to do that again, meaning go anywhere near the hospital grounds where the conference was being held. He didn't eat before we left, food there was expensive and limited, it was drizzling the whole time we were walking around (getting there and leaving - the conference was indoors), and he was very grumpy. So we wandered around the market, had some food, and left.

Learning to Crochet

2011-09-26T13:29:00.001+01:00

Since last I posted my knitting progress has been, um, this side of non-existent. I managed to cut my middle finger in a small cooking incident of the "I can't believe I was so stupid" variety on Thursday. These are the times I'm really glad that 1. I'm not a bleeder and 2. I've never nicked an artery (I'm pretty sure that would nudge the "average blood loss per incident" numbers a bit to the left). I didn't feel it required stitches, being more of a flaying than severing injury and between pressure and immobilizing the knuckle, it sealed itself. Today is my first day without a plaster/band-aid and flexibility doesn't appear to be impaired. I keep wiggling it to make sure I don't develop tight scar tissue. It's visibly swollen but doesn't hurt* unless I poke it. "So don't poke it!" I hear you yell. That's all well and good except, if it wasn't a part of my digit that I use, I probably wouldn't have cut it. It turns out, I use the front side of that finger to stabilize a lot of things, not the least of which is my left knitting needle.

I made it about 8hrs (not counting when I was asleep) before I couldn't stand the sitting idly and picked up my (beautiful beautiful beautiful) current sock project and tried knitting without using the injured digit. It went...awkwardly. I probably would've pushed through, as slow and encumbered as it was, except every couple of stitches my vigilance would slacken, my middle finger would try to participate, and it'd end stabbing pain and Sailor-itis of the Language. Not my best 20 minutes. Knitting wasn't any better than sitting idly and swimming and baking were right out, so I decided to Learn to Crochet.

Now, I understand the basic theory of crochet (1.create a loop, 2. use hook to pull yarn through loop creating a new loop, 3. repeat step 2) and Once Upon a Time, say 20 years ago, I was taught to make granny squares and got a fair way into a blanket though until it became increasingly obvious** that crocheting an afghan in a 40C/100F degree summer wasn't the best idea ever. By the time I picked it up again I was a little shaky on the details and I hated the colours and acrylic-ness of the yarn I was using so it went back into the closet.

Part of my reluctance to learn crochet is my association with acrylic yarn and bad 70s styling. Every time I see a granny-square waistcoat/vest I want to recycle my alumin(i)um needles. I think crochet is brilliant for making stuffed toys and afghans but otherwise has few redeeming features. One of those redeeming features, however, is that I can do it without using my poorly finger. I picked a pattern and every time it used a term I didn't recognize (which was pretty much everything after "chain" and "single crochet") I looked it up online and kept at it till I had something resembling the pictures.

I started with a lacy cowl using rainbow yarn but it was too small so I frogged it and made a different cowl with the rainbow yarn. It's finished other than weaving in ends and adding buttons but it's (ahem) too small so I doubt I'll ever bother. Yesterday I made a third cowl, based on the first two, and it fits but is rolling so I'll probably frog it as well. While none of my projects have been perfect, I'm confident that I've got the basics down and want to turn my attention to small toys.

* though the nerve sensations if I touch it gently are really bizarre and disconcerting

** get it? The blanket was increasing in size and becoming increasingly warm and....never mind.

FOs: Monkey Socks and Mitts

2011-09-21T15:35:00.000+01:00

Monkey - Cookie A
Opal by by Zwerger Garn

I just realized that I have the yarn I used for my socks and the yarn I used for my husband's Swing Socks (HSS) mixed up in Ravelry. Oops. I blame the German labels, German being a language I don't read, and my uncertainty about what to enter as the brand vs name, coupled with my inability to take decent pictures which is why I added the pictures some time after stashing the yarn. When I started the projects, I selected the yarn based on the pictures and they're all mixed up. Bugger.

Anyhoo, these were knit with the Opal yarn which I love. The yarn for my husband's socks was a bit scratchy (though it softened amazingly when washed) and this yarn was much nicer to touch. I also like the stripes which worked out about each row. You can't see it in the lace section, but the heels, sole, and toes have really cute stripes. I think the pattern section would be wavy stripes if it weren't for all the purling. If I knit these again - I don't see myself doing so as there are so many sock patterns out there still to try, but I'm not opposed to the idea - I think I'll just knit the whole thing and skip the purling entirely.

They knit up quickly and easily once I had gauge* - I started off a little large on my 2.5mm circs and couldn't locate my 2.25mm ones (though I remembered where they were later that day) so I sized down to 2.0mm and they were a little small so it was the 2.5mm after all. I knit them together down through the instep and then one at a time for the toes so that, if it turned out to be the wrong length, I'd only have to rip back one sock. They use the same short-row heels as the HSS, but a different toe bind-off in the form of the Kitchner stitch which I'd used for the Corazon Mittens I made for my first winter in Inverness. I had to look it up again and accidentally purled a few stitches on one of the socks, but otherwise it went smoothly.

The socks only took 70g of the skein. The thing I don't like about top-down socks is the worry that I'll run out of yarn, so I didn't feel comfortable making the cuffs longer than specified. My preferences run to knee socks and I anticipate becoming one of those knitters who converts every pattern to be knit from the toe-up and continuing until I run out of yarn. As it is, I had 30g left so I divided it into two 15g hanks and knit myself a pair of matching mitts. To keep from having to rip out two mitts every time I tweaked something, I cast on one mitt and got it the right size (48 stitches, 2.5mm needles) and when I was sure it would fit, cast on the other, knit it up to the same point, and then finished them two-at-a-time. I used an afterthought thumb and knit them from the fingers up and they reach about 2" past my wrist - a good length.

* I use the term loosely here to mean "an appropriate size to fit comfortably" as opposed to the traditional "size to match original pattern"

Comforts of Home

2011-09-13T19:17:00.002+01:00

Some friends* recently started a podcast Geek Girl Crafts, covering an overlap of interest between geeky crafters and crafty geeks (not necessarily to be confused with cunning geeks), and as denizens of the SF Bay Area they talk about local events that may be of interest to geeks or crafters. The previous podcast included references to gaming conventions, renfaires, and the Dickens' Fair and triggered a bout of homesickness.

My first winter (this upcoming will be my third), I got acutely homesickness about once ever two months: I would be walking along and all of a sudden I would be hit with a wave of loneliness and homesickness and want nothing more than to curl up in bed with a hot water bottle and cry. It was a lot like PMT/PMS only without the cramps. The next day I'd feel fine again. This last year has involved homesickness, but usually passing pangs rather than day-long bouts - and I consider myself to be very lucky that occasional days of homesickness has been the worst of it. I know people who were or are chronically homesick. That day, after listening to the podcast, was just a mild funk that lingered for a few days, mostly unnoticed. That's more my life now: every so often there'll be a slight fugue, a day or three when I'm a bit blue around the edges, usually because Something is Happening back home and I feel left out. I only really noticed this last time because, walking to the grocery store, I saw a tiny oak tree, too young to be called even a sapling, and it's leaves were turning orange and red and I thought, "aww, just like poison oak!" and then had to laugh ruefully at myself because, really, who gets nostalgic for toxic flora?

The easiest comfort for homesickness is food, as importing people can be tricky and they tend not to want to sit in your cupboard for weeks or months on end. My friend T, a fellow USian living in the UK, asks people to bring her Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (blue box). I brought a box for her when I came to visit the UK, back when she was a friend of a friend and not someone I'd ever met. When I had a chance to request things I figured, "why not?" and asked for blue boxes of my own. They really do taste like my childhood which is particularly strange given that my mother cooked from scratch, mostly using things grown in our garden, and Kraft Mac'n'Cheese had almost no place in my childhood. But it tasted like childhood, and soup mugs, and standing in my mother's post-earthquake kitchen. Even my husband, who had never had mac'n'cheese from a box, liked it.

I'm down to one box, which like my one bottle of root beer is now For Emergency Purposes Only, so in the name of Science I purchased a box of Kraft Cheesey Pasta (red box) and made it for lunch.

I'd like us all to take a moment and think of the blue box, the one that tastes like home and idyllic moments of childhood. Now think about the red box with the different name but very similar ingredient list and "nutrition information". Obviously it won't be the same. We know this because, if it was the same T wouldn't need to ask people to bring her blue boxes. But we're hoping, despite the colour shift, that it'll be Good Enough. Oh, Gentle Reader, that is not the case! I think they were going for "tastes like Extra Mature Cheddar cheese" but somehow they missed cheese. It was awful in the way that only "children's food" you haven't grown up eating can be. I eventually dumped enough real cheese and salsa over it to make it palatable but I can't imagine how desperately optimistic I'd have to feel to purchase another box. Cry for me, when you see the boxes, blue or red, and remember tale of woe.

* a friend, a passing acquaintance and a woman I don't believe I've met

FO: Husband Swing Socks

2011-09-09T12:07:00.000+01:00

Sunday Swing Socks - Kristel Nyberg
Fortissima Colori, Socka Colori - 100g/420m - 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide

I first cast these on back in June and knit up the first one fairly handily - and then ran into Trouble. Try though I might and I did try* I just couldn't get the second sock to match the first sock and we're talking a difference of gauge that would not "just block out".

So I started over. This is a learning experience, right? This second iteration knit up quickly and I finished them on August 30th and even let my husband wear them for an hour that evening and again later that week when we went to visit Aged Parent (his father). Aged Parent was fairly indifferent to the socks but when he noticed the beads on my Swallowtail Shawl he declared that I must have the patience of Job. Chris, OTOH, is completely enamoured of his socks and has even started a twitter account for them. Ah, geek love.

Look at the pretty ripples (and the white glow of my English husband's skin)! Oliver tried to photobomb these pictures as well, but eventually wandered off to harass his sister instead. The yarn was a little itchy as I knit with it, but post washing is as soft as a cotton cloud. I was terrified when I took them out of the wash (30C, gentle cycle, hung over the radiator to dry) that they'd stretched beyond fitting but as you can see, they're perfect.

* I decided I wasn't ready for the AutoPilot Socks yet as, without any socks under my belt, frogging and reknitting to get it right was going to break my heart. Also, while I love the yarn I hate the colour. Not a winning combination.

Knittery and Cookery

2011-09-08T17:13:00.001+01:00

I don't have much to say about knitting at the moment mostly because, while I've been knitting and have even finished things, I haven't had a chance to take pictures of them and thus I'm not posting about it. Part of the problem is figuring out how to stage things. Now that I've discovered the un-occupied cat tree makes a wonderful drape for shawls (and that staging knitting leads to my cats saying, "no, that's fine, we were done napping here anyway. You go ahead." I really do have the best cats) I can take shawl pictures all day long, but socks need a little more help. My husband is the definition of GGG*, to coop a phrase, so I'm sure he'll agree to model knitwear in exchange for, you know, knitwear.

So yes, I have been knitting (finished the Husband Swing Socks and a "helmet" style hat for Chris, spent two nights trying to work out my own double-knit mitten patterns to coordinate with the hat before giving up because this yarn is not agreeable to frogging and reknitting and therefore less than ideal from a design PoV, and I've turned the heels and am decreasing the gusset on the Monkeys for me. Knitting things, things that can actually be used and have a function, a purpose, is simply amazing.

I've also been cooking. I mentioned that I picked up a cookery magazine for my husband and that he made a Mysterious List of Recipes to Try which he's dribbled out to me day by day so I could go to the grocery store and purchase ingredients. On Monday I made a Sausage Bake with onions, butternut squash, garlic, and carrots which was quite nommy and then on Tuesday we boiled some pasta, and mixed it with the leftover sausage bake, some créme fraiche, a chilli, and some parsley and OMG was that delicious. Wednesday was a Roast Chicken (again with onions and garlic) and a scrummy gravy which tonight becomes chicken pot pies with broccoli. Chris and I had a small fight about who gets to make dinner** and I played the "but dinner takes an hour to prep and an hour to bake and if we wait for you to make it, we won't eat till 8 or 9o'clock" which I played yesterday when he wanted to go with me to buy the ingredients and then make dinner. Because I'm a good and magnanimous wife I suggested that he make the pudding (apple tarts made with the leftover puff pastry from the pies) which I had originally planned on making as a surprise. I try to be GGG too.Speaking of dinner, I should go do that now.

* Good, Giving, Game

** Seriously, we both want to do it. Chris also likes it when we cook together but I want to Do All The Things which isn't exactly in the spirit of cooperation. If neither of us feels like making dinner we either defrost something (if we notice the ennui early in the day) or order take-away (if we give up around dinner time).

Magazine Equality

2011-09-05T12:07:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, Sunday, my husband and I walked into town to pick up some things we were out of (milk, laundry tabs). I suggested we pick up some things with which to make dinner which earned me a completely blank look from Chris. The previous night's potato and cheese roll served with roasted chicken had been sliced and toasted to be served for breakfast with bacon and apparently that had satisfied the cooking and eating part of his brain such that he was caught off guard by the suggestion that we might need to cook and eat ever again, let alone that evening. We decided to pull out the last lock'n'lock of beef stew from a couple of weeks ago and save recipe-hunting for another time.

Sundays in the UK, certainly in Inverness, are a bit quieter than their counterparts in metropolitan centres in the US, the bay area in particular. The big chains are still open, but keep shorter hours, but a lot if not most of the little shops are closed. Relevant to my interests, the Victorian Market where the three craft stores are located, is closed and the little health food shop I like to poke around in is as well. The only purpose to walking into town, as opposed to the new Tesco which is 0.1miles closer in the other direction, is to stop at Costa Coffee and have a flat white (him) and hot chocolate with vanilla syrup (me). Alas, Chris had just had his second or third cup of the day when we left the house and wasn't yet ready for a Costa visit and there's no point in buying milk and ice cream* and then sitting in a coffee shop while it melts. In a stroke of ~~genius~~ inspiration, I asked if we could duck into WH Smith and look at their magazines.

I love a good magazine. I loath everything the men's and women's interest magazines stand for ("look at this product which will magically solve all the problems with your life and your appearance that you didn't know you had!") but almost every other magazine is brilliant to flip through - even the trashy celeb mags: seeing how a dozen different magazines compete to give the same story a different cover layout and headline spin (seeing all those covers was as close as I ever got to following "pop culture"). When I worked in a bookstore I loved thumbing through magazines and seeing what there was to see. And now that knitting is my main obsession, I need knitting magazines. I got a digital subscription for Interweave Knits (and Piecework is calling my name) but I figure there must be a UK knitting magazine worth getting, whether digitally or in full glossy glory. I flipped through my binders of patterns culled from my stripped** magazine collection to see which magazines published my favourite patterns and...nothing. I found a few UK magazines online, but couldn't tell A) how often they were each published or B) if there was enough inside of interest to be worth buying one. Thus the need to visit a newstand.

I decided on a copy of Knitting Magazine for me and, as a distraction, Delicious (a cookery magazine) for my husband. He was dubious but I know how much he loves thumbing through recipes and Delicious was one I recognized as a Really Really Really Good Cookery Magazine so I purchased it anyway. He loves it. He stayed up past midnight, pouring over the recipes and picking out 10 (ten!) recipes to make this week. That's just the mains - he's decided I should pick out the puddings. He's being very mysterious about it: I'm not allowed to know which recipes he's picked out and he'll be placing our grocery delivery order when I'm not looking so it'll be a big surprise. I am allowed to know what we're having for dinner tonight as I need to purchase a butternut squash, red onions, and carrots so we can actually make it. There was a bit of a kerfluffle about sausage, when he asked me to get some out of the garage-freezer and then said but not those sausages, well maybe these sausages, pick ones that are "meaty" and I made an executive decision that he needs to select the right sausages as I don't understand the criteria.

In other news, I like my magazine if only because it is full of yarns readily available in the UK and the "upcoming events" includes something in Inverness! Another bonus - they have a couple of projects pictured as knit up in alternate colours in the suggested yarn. I may knit a sweater yet.

* I spent the morning catching up with Pioneer Woman Cooks and decided that our two lonely bananas needed to be turned into Bananas Foster which in turn needed to be poured over ice cream. Thus, "double cream" and "ice cream" were added to the list.

** you know how the first page in a mass market (little) paperback says "if you purchased this book without its cover it was reported as destroyed and neither the author nor the publisher made any money off of it"? That's 'cause books that don't sell get returned to the publisher but MM and magazines aren't worth shipping around so you just return the front cover and destroy (or take home) the rest. This was one of the best parts of working in a bookstore until they started a company-wide recycling program and magazines had to be returned whole to be stripped and processed elsewhere.

FO: Beaded Swallowtail Shawl

2011-09-02T13:03:00.000+01:00

Swallowtail Shawl - Evelyn A Clark
2-ply lambswool "Sea spray" from Judith Glue
E Beads - 4mm purple from the Craft Factory
4.5mm needles for the CO; 3.5mm for the body; 0.75mm crochet hook to strand the beads
Blocked: 62"x32"

I followed the pattern as written with a few modifications: beads instead of nupps, attached with a crochet hook while knitting; 19 repeats of the blossom lace chart; I was running out of yarn and left off the border lace chart.

I really enjoyed knitting this, as I did her Flower Basket Shawl before. I find the way she charts her lace to be a little odd: I get that it's the simplest way to write out the chart but, for me, it's not charted in a way that visually imparts the lace. Looking at the chart, I don't see how the finished lace will look. Her lace repeats are so elegantly simple that I can knit each row based on how the previous row looked, pausing periodically to count the blossoms up the center, but I have to get a couple repeats in to see how the chart relates to the lace.

Is this a criticism? No. Rather it is a statement of preference based on how charts work for me, and the way I see charts. As another preference, with lace that is "RS: work pattern, WR: k2, p across, k2", I am frustrated if the purl rows are shown in the chart. It breaks the pattern up in a way that makes it more difficult for me to read. For other people, I'm sure it's very helpful. Other people may find that my ideal, having the chart written out with a few repeats show and a red box around the basic repeat, would be needlessly confusing. So no, it's not a criticism, just an observation on my experience reading this particular chart to knit this particular chart.

I also tend to dislike instructions for increasing the size by using a yarn and needles that give a different gauge. Yes, obviously I can do that, but what I really want to know is the multiples needed to get from one chart to the next smoothly. An advantage of knitting a popular shawl like this one (over 9000 projects on Ravelry!) is that for most simple modifications like the ones I've done, someone has already worked out the details. I got the "19 repeats" figure from the hive-mind, without having to work it out myself - a particular bonus as, as I mentioned, the chart isn't visually ideal for me.

A bonus picture of Oliver who, when I spread the unblocked shawl on the duvet, ran over, jumped up on the bed, and lay down right where you see him.

Almost Finished: Husband Swing Socks

2011-08-28T12:04:00.002+01:00

I have turned the heel and am almost done with the gusset decreases for the Husband Swing Socks (modelled above, by yours truly as my husband's feet seem to have walked off). I've taken to reading knitting blogs, that being my inspiration to start one, and I keep adding more and more as I find them. I could - and sometimes do! - spend hours reading my RSS feed. One of the best parts of this, aside from inspiration both as a knitter and a writer (and hopefully someday a woman who can take decent photographs), has been reading about techniques and how to properly execute them. Most of it I glance over, taking in the barest details as they don't pertain to current knitting projects. But then, having turned the heel, I remember I read something about different ways to "pick-up and knit", which is what I'm going to do now, and it looked nothing like how I've been doing it* so I googled "pick-up and knit" and found a tutorial on Knitty which explained how to pick up sock gussets and away I went!

I finished my Glasgow-trip shawl last week and finally got my office cleared out enough that I could block it so it's stretched out upstairs thinking decreasingly damp and increasingly stretched thoughts. My husband said, "oh, wow!" a lot and declared it to be his favourite shawl yet. I'll try and stage some decent pictures once it's dry and do a proper write up then (hence neither pictures nor details here, though I've done a few "sneak peeks" on Twitter and Plus.

Speaking of Plus, I've read about knitter communities there and I am eager to wade my toes in that pool. The problem of course is that I don't know who any of the bloggers are (darn "real name" policy) and I feel weird about "following" people who don't know me from Adam. I guess I'll just have to put myself forward and hope for the best.

In other news, because this whole "only working on one project" thing was very bizarre, I've cast on the Monkey Socks in my blue/purple Opal wool for me. Now I'm going to have to force myself to finish Chris' socks sooner rather than later!

*I'm mostly self-taught as a knitter. A friend of a friend showed me how but she is allergic to the wool yarn I was learning with and took a decidedly "hands-off" approach. She showed me "knit" and "purl" and everything else I figured out on my own, trying to make patterns "work". No wonder I've been afraid to make fitted garments!

Autumnal Acceptance

2011-08-26T13:38:00.004+01:00

I gave up on summer back in July and found that I've been much happier with the weather since then. Never getting above 20C/68F is much easier to accept in autumn than summer, even if the calendar still says "August". Chris was sad when I gave up on summer, mostly I think because he wants me to be happy and I'm meant to spend warm afternoons on a deckchair, reading in my bathing suit but that's never going to be my life in Scotland. Happiness is in accepting your life for what it is, not railing for what it isn't, so I've decided to accept that I've moved from a land of three seasons (spring-summer-fall) to a land of three seasons (spring-autumn-winter). The good news, of course, is that I now live in a land where knitting is always appropriate and everyone can use a pair of mittens or a wooly hat or scarf for Christmas ("if you wanted a cable-knit scarf, I wish you would've said something in June!").

Anyway, Chris said it wasn't autumn yet and that we still have a bit of summer left but the trees agree with me - their leaves are starting to turn the colour of sunset and drop. There's a tiny maple(?) in our back garden that's always the first to turn: it gave up on summer the same time I did and now other trees are trying to catch up. The days are also noticeably shorter. No longer is the sky still light with twilight when we seek our beds at midnight. No, the sun goes down by half-eight/eight-thirty and a little earlier every day, and we have to turn on the lights, when we got to bed at ten.

Autumn is a time of hearty food so I turn to my crock-pot and the infinite variety of stews that "bung in whatever you have to hand" can bring. Last week I did a beef and scotch broth with celery, carrots, potatoes, garlic, and rosemary and sage from the garden. This week it's turkey with green/runner beans, carrots, onions, celery, garlic, and thyme and sage from the garden. I'm quite proud of my little herbs, the ones that haven't gone to seed (I'm looking at you coriander/cilantro and oregano). The nice thing about a big pot of stew is being able to freeze it and defrost two servings at a time, heated up with a fresh made dumpling/biscuit topping, and getting a week's worth of dinners with very little effort. Stew can also be heated from frozen, so even if you don't think to pull out a lock'n'lock/tupperware in the morning, you have a last-minute meal that doesn't involve take-away/take-out.

Sockrifice*

2011-08-25T17:27:00.006+01:00

I have made good progress on Chris' Sunday Swing Socks, having done four repeats of the "lace" pattern (one yarn-over every quarter the way 'round doesn't really qualify as lace but I don't know what else to call it - YOs = lace, right?) and I'm now working on the heel flaps (boring!). I switched from Magic Loop to two circs, though still knitting two-at-a-time, for convenience. Mind you it would be more convenient if I owned a 2.5mm circ that's less than 100cm, but I'd rather my needles be too long than too short.

I am happy to report that, flying to London and back, security didn't blink at my knitting needles. They did, however, need to search the coarse-ground oatmeal (as in ground oats, not porridge) that I was bringing for Tonnvane. I also had no trouble knitting on the tube, using my drawstring bag from The Yarn Cake looped over one wrist and both yarn sources (the skein and the unraveling sock) inside. Easier than knitting on the sofa with a quantity of yarn to either side of me, even.

Chris gamely went to three yarn shops with me (two LYS and one department store with a haberdashery). I bought three skeins of a bulky Rowan for a multi-coloured hat with ear flaps for Chris at the haberdashery and one skein of a gorgeous blue Wollemeise sock yarn, another project bag, and some special "safety pin" stitch markers for me from one of the LYS. The other one had some beautiful wool, but the internet was full of bad reviews (confirmed later by a local knitter)) and I'm a little tired of buying a beautiful skein of something and then not knowing what to do with it. That always seems to end in shawls and, as previously discussed, I don't need 400 shawls. So I decided to not buy yarn for the sake of buying yarn from a shop with a bad reputation.

Speaking of buying yarn for the sake of buying yarn, I showed Chris the "Happy Birthday, Dear Knitter" video from Franklin of The Panopticon and he kept guffawing. He says that even a year ago he wouldn't have found it funny, but now it's hilarious and he beseeched me to share it, so here you go.

I caught Oliver playing with my yarn. He said he could explain, but so far nothing:

* Credit for the pun goes to Tonnvane who was quite amused at the unraveling of one sock to knit another. She may have been inspired by margaritas.

Resumes and Me

2011-08-16T18:59:00.003+01:00

First of all, thank you to the people who have helped me with my resume. You are all brilliant, wonderful people without whom I wouldn't have a functional resume. I know this because just thinking about my resume induces flu-like symptoms. I'm mostly okay as long as someone is figuratively holding my hand and working out for me how to phrase things, how to style things, and basically building my resume for me. It all makes sense then and my anxiety levels drop.

But then it inevitably happens. My guide, my guru, my savoir says something along the lines of "okay, now you do the rest." They push the fledgling from the nest, confident they've provided the skills I need to fly, and I plummet. I freeze up. My head feels too small for my brain, my scalp gets hot - it feels like my blood is boiling and I experience tunnel-vision. I'm alternatingly too hot and too cold. Sometimes I even cry - to put things in perspective, my husband is awed by the emotional display if I get misty-eyed and fear of working on a resume makes me cry. Needless to say, nothing productive happens to my resume.

People commiserate with me, they tell me that they find resume-building and tailoring (I have to tailor the darn thing, too? I can't just create one and be done with it until my next period of job-hunting? If anyone needs me, I'll be throwing up) to be stressful and unpleasant. But it doesn't reduce you to a quivering pile of goo in a bad way? Then yeah, it doesn't compare.

I told my husband that I know how Oliver, our little scaredy-cat, feels. Any time there's unexpected movement, or sound, he crouches down very low and tries to be very small. Things he enjoys doing himself, rustling plastic bags, are terrifying if done by anyone else. He runs away very, very fast and hides behind the printer or in a cupboard, and he waits, trembling with ears perked and the whites showing around his eyes, for horrible things to happen. For me, resumes are that horrible thing

Blue Period (shawls and socks)

2011-08-13T18:18:00.006+01:00

I've been going through a Blue Period - buying a lot of things that are blue. It started with the wedding: Chris and I settled on a bluey tartan for his kilt so I had my dress detailed in blue and my bridesmaids picked navy for their dresses and lo, we were well and truly settled on blue for our "colours". Somehow this idea of matching colours spilled out into the rest of my life. I realized I'd lost weight* and needed to buy an almost entirely new (to me) wardrobe and anything that was a wedding-coordinated shade of blue got bonus points as something I could wear in the days leader up to and following the wedding. I also spent a fairly substantial amount of time looking for the perfect blue yarn with which to knit myself a wedding shawl. Chris even bought a blue coffee machine. It also helps that blue is one of the few colours for which I love almost every shade. I'd be hard-pressed to name a shade of blue I'd be just as happy to never see again, which is not something that can be said of green or red - though purple fairs better. It is perhaps, then, unsurprising that a lot of things in my life, right now, are blue.

A while back, in Judith Glue (a "tourist" shop that sells things made locally rather than China) I picked up an 100g cake of two-ply lambswool in a dark teal described as "ocean spray". That's everything I know about it. It's more of a sock weight than fingering but I have no idea how much yardage I'll get out of 100g! I kept picking it up to make something and then set it back down again, worried I wouldn't have enough yarn. It's not really something I want to snuggle against my skin, so no scarves, hats, or mittens. The best "knit until you run out of yarn" idea that I could think of was a top-down shawl and I finally settled on Evelyn C. Clark's popular Swallowtail Shawl. I made her "Flower Basket Shawl" for Miss Krissy and really enjoyed knitting it, so it seemed perfect. Also if almost 9000** other knitters have cast it on, it must be a great shawl, right?

The only real downside is that part of me would rather be knitting socks. I love shawls - I've knit 7 of them so far this year and this shawl will make 8. Three of those I gave away and one I plan to frog, but I'm still going to be four shawls richer this year. My first "real" project was the Tri-Aran-Angle Shawl from Knitty back in 2003 (but only blocked this May) and I have a couple pashminas that I wear regularly. Eventually a girl has to ask - do I need more shawls? Is there a shawl-niche I haven't filled? For a while this spring there was, when I had a small dark rose shawl and a small red shawl and the wedding shawl I couldn't wear yet and, unless I was wearing something that went well with red or rose, I couldn't drape on a shawl. So yes, I probably have room for a black shawl and maybe a few stoles/scarves, but I can't just sit around knitting shawls that I'll never or rarely wear. If nothing else, where will I store all these shawls?

But I can use an unlimited variation of socks. Socks in different colours, weights, patterns, lengths... I wear socks most ever day (more than one pair in the winter) and need a selection to rotate through. I can also knit socks for my husband who has, as of yet, expressed no desire for a lacy shawl. Socks are about the same investment as a small shawl - most sock and shawl patterns seem to call for one skein of sock-weight yarn. Socks should be the perfect answer to enjoyable, productive knitting. I am starting to buy sock yarn and patterns, to read about knitting socks and construction techniques and am completely hooked on socks.

The only problem, of course, is that I've yet to knit my first pair of socks. They'll be blue though.

* I'd known I was losing weight but it wasn't until I stopped wearing 3 or 4 layers under my jeans that it became, um, obvious that all my clothes were falling off.

** I occasionally hear people say they won't knit something if the pattern is really popular. I can understand not wanting to show up at a party and have everyone else sporting the same knitwear, but I tend to figure if that many people have previously knit it then all mistakes in the pattern have been sussed out and corrected. Also, I like having a wide selection of "yarn suggestions", looking at the pictures of other people's finished projects, and reading their notes. And, quite frankly, the odds of me running into another knitter who has knit the same thing as me and we're both wearing it, living here in urban-rural Scotland are remote.

Sock It to Me, Baby

2011-08-10T17:59:00.004+01:00

Well, I haven't run out of sock puns yet. I also haven't managed to finish my first pair of socks yet. I frogged my husband's Sunday Swing Sock when he wasn't looking and cast on 80 stitches based on my gauge when trying to knit the second sock (much, much smaller than the first sock) but my gauge seems to have loosened up again. This probably means I could have not frogged the first sock and managed to get the second one to be the same size, but this way I'm not taking any chances.

Anyway, I CO 80 stitches (twice, since I'm doing them two-at-a-time now) and suspected they were too big but wanted to knit a few inches to be sure so I did two repeats of the pattern and if I'd finished them they'd just have been huge, slouchy socks. I was tempted to just finish the darn things to be done but while I figure my husband could comfortably wear them if the calf is slouchy, he wouldn't want to if the heel and foot were too big around and I really do want to knit something he can wear so, again when he wasn't looking, I forgged them and CO 72 stitches - the next smaller size. I spent the whole evening working on them only to realize that somewhere along the way I'd gotten off on the 1x1 ribbing and the easiest thing was just to frog them again.

That was last night. Today I cast them on again and have completed the inch of ribbing and am halfway through the first repeat of the pattern and I think *knock on/touch wood* that this time I will knit a pair of socks.

And then I can revel in the new yarn I bought in Glasgow. Mmmm, yarn.

Achievement Unlocked: FLR(M)

2011-08-10T11:55:00.002+01:00

My Biometrics ID card arrived today so I officially have Further Leave to Remain (for two more years)!

Chris and I took the train down to Glasgow Friday morning, or rather we tried to - the East Coast from London never showed up the night before so there was no train to take back down. They found three coaches, two of which were going directly to Edinburgh and one was hitting the scheduled stops in between - only no one really knew what was going on. There were four railway employees standing around in the station telling people to "go over there" and no one by the coaches to say "Where are you going? You want this coach." There were no loos on the coach and no trolley service and the coach took the back roads rather than the A9 so it took about 3hrs to get to Perth where we were transferring to a train to Glasgow. Not the train we had seat reservations on, of course, as we'd already missed that one. But we could finally use toilets and drink water, the sun had come out, and we would still make it to Glasgow a few hours before my UKBA appointment.

We stayed at the Carlton George which is half a block from the train station and has king-size beds as standard (Chris hates sharing a double). The room was very nice, though very loud with the window open and/or the AC on and very stuffy if they weren't. There was a complimentary (read: already paid for) mini-bar though that didn't get restocked until later. We dropped our bags and made sure we had everything for our appointment and took a taxi from the station to the "business park" where UKBA is housed. We were a little early so we got sandwiches at the forgettable place across the street and then walked around the block a bit and found the subway station, and we were still a little early (my appointment was 2:20, they advise you get there half an hour early, and it was about 10 minutes before that window) but they decided to let us in. I'd brought my knitting, my kindle, and a paperback in case they took those away when they collected our phones. They did take my knitting (because of the needles) but let me keep my kindle. Almost as soon as I got my number and sat down I was called up and handed over my documents to Worker 1 who said it would take him ten minutes to look over so we sat down again. Very shortly thereafter he called us up again, told me he'd hand it over to a second set of eyes (per regulations), in the meantime I would have my biometrics (fingerprints and photo) taken and then if I wanted to leave and walk around, someone else would call me up in about 40 minutes. About a minute later I was called up for biometrics and Worker 2 was laughing and having a gay old time, though she did lament the "no smiling" rule for photos as everyone turns out looking like a serial killer. I did like that they did the four fingers together, rather than trying to do each individually. The two previous times I'd had biometrics done took forever, trying to get a clean scan of each fingerprint, without smudging or smearing.

I sat down again and very shortly thereafter I was called up by Worker 3 who asked if I had anything with regards to my Tier 4 (student) visa, to show that I'd been attending and passing my course. I explained that it had ended in June, the weekend before we got married, and that I hadn't had any communication from them since. He grumbled a bit about needing proof and that chasing down information like this isn't part of the express service of an in-person application and that they could refund us our money and we could get the proof and either mail it in or apply for another appointment, grumble grumble, but he'd ask his supervisor if he could try calling UHI to see if they could confirm my being in good standing. His supervisor said to go ahead and call and, if he couldn't get a hold of anyone that I could get something typed up by UHI and have it faxed in on Monday and they could approve it then without the postal application or having to come back. Phew! Chris was still very angsty, but Worker 2 was able to get through to Claire, the guidance councillor for international students (like me!) and she verified that I showed up for classes and had passed them and was eligible to enroll in the next years' course! So that's two happy things for the day - FLR(M) and an HNC in Computing!

He returned all of my documents and a letter saying "You can stay! Here's how! (not all guidances will apply to everyone we hand this sheet to)", put a "superseded" stamp across my previous visa, and told me that my biometric card, which replaces the traditional sticker in one's passport, would arrive in the post in 7-10 business days. It showed up today, a mere three business days later. I am now a Probationary Almost-Person!

We took the very cute subway (third oldest in the world!) back to the train station and our hotel - much easier and quicker than ordering a taxi, though I wouldn't have wanted to wander around looking for UKBA before my appointment. We spent quite a bit of time grinning at each other and doing little happy dances. Chris had forgotten his nice trousers (which I'd ironed for him) so after dropping the visa stuff off at the hotel we wandered around Glasgow for a bit and found a nice pair of trousers that fit (Chris is tiny so this isn't a given) but continued to be unsuccessful in our quest for a non-black or grey cardigan for him. We had a cuppa at Costa and by then the excitement of the day had caught up with us so we went back to the hotel room, Chris opened the half bottle of Muscat d'Asti he'd brought, and we collapsed on the bed until it was time to get ready for dinner at the rooftop restaurant in our hotel. I wore my wedding jewellery and shoes, a black velvet dress, and my wedding shawl. Chris wore a black shirt and trousers with a red tie and his nice cuff links and tie pin and we were by far the gussiest people in the joint. We ate too much and drank till we giggled and generally celebrated getting to stay together (for two more years!) in this country we call home.

FO: Eleanor Cowl

2011-08-03T20:10:00.003+01:00

Eleanor Cowl - Audrey Knight, Knitty Deep Fall 2010
Misti Alpaca, Tonos Carnaval: Symphony Blue - 100g/400m - 50% Alpaca/30% Merino/10% Nylon/10% Silk

This is my finished Eleanor Cowl, out of the leftover yarn from my wedding shawl. I switched to my smallest needles when I changed charts instead of waiting for the repeat of the second chart - one day I will learn to read patterns carefully. I want the cowl snug around my neck, so I'm going to consider it a fortuitous happenstance rather than a blunder. As I believe I mentioned before, my interchangeable set is metric with whole and half-sizes so I lack a 3.75mm (US5) needle and used 4.5mm, 4.0mm, and 3.5mm for the needles.

I haven't yet blocked the cowl and I don't think I will beyond, perhaps, the very bottom. As I said, I like it snug around my neck. I'm worried that, with winter being cold and all, stretching the lace out will just make it less useful. If this upcoming winter is anything like the last, I will be using it under a scarf and probably considering layering it with another. This is what happens when a Delicate Mediterranean Flower moves to Scotland.

Posting in my dreams

2011-08-03T16:18:00.004+01:00

I often lie in bed at night, staring at the light peeking around the curtains*, thinking about the things I want to post. I compose essays on our daily life; the adventures of our kittens; thoughts on governments and politics; novels I've read and novels I would like to read; the weather (currently sunny! first sunshine all week!); things I am knitting and things I'm not knitting; wedding memories; cooking successes and disasters; having my FiL, Aged Parent, over for tea... I find the right phrases, the hook and development, draw pictures with words, and get very excited about the potential and realization. And then, because I don't want to get up and keep my husband from sleeping**, I fall asleep and those thoughts are at best dim shadows when I awake. That, in case you're curious, is why I don't post more.

One of my RSS feeds posted about hand cream for knitters, fast drying without residue, containing willow bark extract: topical pain reliever. At first I was excited - imagine if after a day of knitting socks on tiny needles and pulling my tension too tight my hands didn't ache for a week! Then reality came crashing in - questions about its effectiveness beyond mere placebo aside, do I really want something that would let me knit on oblivious to the pain? Pain is my body's way of saying, "don't do that! or at least, don't do so much of that!" I experience pain when my body is hurt, as a warning of damage. It's one thing to, after a day of knitting, take some ibuprofen and rest my hands on a hot water bottle and switch to a larger, looser project. It's another thing to push on, ignoring my body's cries, to do - what? Finish a pair of socks in days rather than weeks or months? Risk crippling my hands so that in five years or less I've done actual damage and, like a friend, have to crochet with a special hook attached to arm-bands? Thanks, I'll pass.

In other news, I finished my neck-warmer (note to self - take pictures and write a post) and have re-cast on Chris' socks as two-at-a-time, but I think my gauge loosened up again so I may have to frog them again and start over with fewer stitches - don't tell Chris!

In other, other news, my immigration appointment is Friday so we should get the last of that ready for our trip down to Glasgow. Wish me luck!

* around midnight. yeah. But it's starting to get dark-ish and I can believe that eventually it will get properly dark.

** he can't sleep unless he thinks I'm asleep

Wedding Vendors: Atholl Palace Hotel

2011-07-28T14:26:00.003+01:00

Today starts what will no doubt be a protracted (as I think of it) series about our wedding, focusing on the vendors and what an amazing job they all did (and they all did amazing jobs).

Atholl Palace Hotel
The biggest decision with regards to getting married* was picking the venue. I guess some people pick the date first and plan around that, but we chose to find the perfect venue and then select a date from their availability lest we find ourselves choosing between our perfect date and our perfect place. I imagine picking a date first is logistically easier if you're looking to get married a year or two out, but we weren't interested in a long engagement or paying to renew my current visa just to switch to and pay for FLR(M) a bit down the line. We spent a couple of weeks sorting through venues online - and ruled out a lot because their wedding information boiled down to "we do weddings! ask us how!" without any concrete details - and making appointments to visit our forerunners. APH was actually the first place we decided to see, after finding their advert in a wedding mag (scottish weddings? I don't remember), the only one outwith about 15 miles on Inverness, and the last one we visited. They were having a winter special on lodging, breakfast and dinner so we booked a mid-week get-away and went on with our search. Most places we visited were fine and would no doubt have resulted in an equally lovely wedding (and no doubt have done for many others) but we had a few favourites which were almost perfect.

When we got to APH we knew, we absolutely knew, it was the place for us. We love the town of Pitlochry (though previously we'd loved it from the train, this being our first trip there); we loved the hotel, and the grounds, and the proximity to so many low-key things to do. The food was wonderful, the staff competent and friendly, and I almost couldn't pry Chris out of the jacuzzi.

Fast-forward to the wedding prep - Gillian, the hotel's wedding coordinator, was very organized. She took detailed notes on our time-line for the day, who each of our vendors would be, everything. She was only in the hotel the morning of our wedding, leaving shortly after the ceremony, but everything ran smoothly. I didn't catch the name of the gentleman who MC'd our reception but he, and his staff, had everything in hand an under control. He also ran the restaurant outwith the weddings and service was markedly better when he was around (other times it was hard to find the staff or get someone to actually bring you a pot of tea or coffee, and when they did it was often the wrong hot beverage. The mice will play). But for our wedding everything was under control.

The food is wonderful, though a bit heavy (lots of cream, not a lot of salad options) if you'll be eating it for several days straight. We'd eaten there before, on several occasions leading up to the wedding, including the menu tasting, and know that the food is delicious, but on that particular day we weren't in a position to appreciate it. I didn't eat a single thing, all day, that tasted good. It was all just weird textures and muted flavour. This is in no way a reflection on the quality of the food - everyone else seemed fine - just an odd observation.

My bridesmaids and I did our make-up through the hotel's spa with mani/pedis the day before and make-up the morning of and everyone we interacted with in the spa was lovely and friendly. Chris got a facial and manicure on Friday and still talks about it in reverent tones. The staff all snuck upstairs to see us walk into the ceremony room, the finished products of their hard work.

Unfortunately it rained the whole day, from when I got up around 6am till we went to bed around midnight so we didn't get to take advantage of the lovely grounds for our photos but the pictures taken inside the hotel and from under the awning out front are still lovely - when you get married in Scotland you have to consider the backdrop for your photos if it rains and APH was brilliant on that score as well.

The only real problem** was the lodges on the grounds which are maintained by the hotel but not own or run by them - this is to say that they clean them between guests and check people in and out but otherwise have nothing to do with them. Trevor, the guy who owns them, was slow to respond to emails and curt when he did. He had no interest in being accommodating - my guests rented 4 of his units, two for a week each and two for the weekend, and none of the other units appeared to be occupied - but he refused to let my parents book a lodge from Wednesday-Tuesday, insisting on a Sunday-Saturday hire. They eventually talked him into letting them book it from Monday-Sunday (when they didn't arrive until Wednesday) so they wouldn't have to be out of the lodge by 11 and not able to check into the hotel until 2 on the day of my wedding, but he was ungracious about it. Then he let the Gatehouse lodge, the one my parents had originally inquired after, to my bridesmaids for the same Wednesday-Tuesday that he'd refused my parents. Needless to say, we were not impressed, and I'd strongly recommend against hiring a holiday cottage from him.

* the actual decision to get married was easy-peasy

** they did accidentally leave the hotel music playing during the start of our ceremony, so we almost got married to La Bumba (I think? Does anyone remember what the song actually was?), but it was soft while it was playing and turned off quickly enough when they realized

Eleanor Cowl

2011-07-21T14:32:00.002+01:00

After a month of knitting socks on tiny needles (with only one finished sock to show for it) I decided to give my poor aching hands a rest and cast on the Eleanor Cowl from knitty. This is when I realized that my (metric-based) interchangeable needles don't have a US5 (3.75mm) as they're half and whole metric sizes. Oops. I have one 3.75mm circ which I guess I will be leaning on for all US5/3.75mm projects. I used a US6/4.0mm circ for this project for the ease of switching needles while leaving the project on the same cables, but I screwed up the transfer so that wasn't exactly brilliant.

I had been looking for something to do with a pretty teal/sea green/aqua yarn cake I bought at a locally-produced gift shop in town, but while I know it's 100g of 2ply lambswool, the yardage (meterage? is that a word? Is it the right word?) is anyone's guess. I looked at making mittens, but the thought of having to do two to complete a project seems too much like what I want to take a break from (though mostly it's the aching fingers as I just bloody well want to have knit a pair of socks already). So I'm using the last of the (lovely, lovely, lovely) yarn I bought for my wedding shawl to knit a small cowl. I should have enough yarn - it could wind up a few rows short, depending on my gauge.

New Socks

2011-07-16T18:43:00.003+01:00

Remember the Sunday Swing Socks? Well, they're not going well. As, no doubt some of you predicted, sizing up my needles got my gauge right horizontally, but messed it up vertically. Two repeats of the lace in and Second Sock is approximately the same width as First Sock but at least half an inch longer than where it should be. Bugger. Chris doesn't want me to frog the first sock and redo both of them and I'm pretty fed up with them, so I've decided to go with Plan B which is Completely Different Socks.

I bought Amy S. Singer (of Knitty fame)'s Autopilot Sock Recipe which is a how-to-customize-a-pair-of-socks guide, from the toe up. I'm also knitting them two-at-a-time using the Magic Loop method so from one-at-a-time, top-down, pattern socks, this is quite a change. I bought Wendy's Happy sock-yarn, a bamboo/nylon blend in "zebra" which is white/blue/grey/green, again fairly different from the darker blues wool/nylon yarn I was using. I really wanted to do toe-up socks so I could knit until I run out of yarn and make custom knee-high socks. I have two skeins, so I'm not pulling from both ends of the same ball and I have plenty of yarn to work with.

I think I've talked Chris around to the frog-and-reknit-both-at-the-same-time school of thought. I may just have to frog First Sock when he's not looking and present it fait accompli.

"Hi, I'm an American and I want to move to the UK!"

2011-07-16T18:22:00.002+01:00

Hi! I’m an American and I want to move to the UK! I am about to graduate high school/a recent high school graduate/a college student/just got my degree. I hope to work for Starbucks/find a paid internship and live in the UK for a few years and travel around Europe before going to college/starting my career/settling down. How do I go about doing this?

I’m sorry, you can’t. The UK has a migrant worker visa, but Americans aren’t eligible. There used to be a visa for Highly Skilled Workers, the Tier 1 visa, under which you would get a certain number of points based on your age, level of education, and salary and, if you were a 30-something PhD making over £100,000 a year, you could come to the UK and look for a job but they got rid of that visa, too. Currently, unless you’re married to a Brit or someone with permission to be in the UK, your only chance to move to the UK and work is to find a sponsorship for a Tier 2 visa - a job doing something that no one in the UK or European Union (EU) is qualified for, and that’s a pool of around 50,000 people - or a Tier 4 (student) visa. Apply for and get accepted to a UK university and continue your studies. As an out-of-EU applicant, you’ll be paying higher fees than you might for an equivalent US program, but the UK ones tend to have shorter durations so the debt you might incur often works out around the same.

I’m an American and I’m in love with a Brit! We met on the internet a month ago and we want to live together! How do we do that?

First off, meet in person. More than once. Knowing someone’s heart and soul and the detailed working of their mind is no substitute for actually spending time together in person. Your Brit could be the reincarnation of Shakespeare and still think that showering more than once a month is unhygienic. It happens. Now you’ve met a few times and you’ve reached the point in your relationship where you need to be less than 5,000 miles apart to see if this is the one, what next? You have the above options, a Tier 2 or a Tier 4 visa, either of which would get you in the country so you can spend time together. I personally went the Tier 4 route, which has the advantage of being feasible and increasing my prospects in the world. US education and work experience don’t count for much in the UK so it can be hard to get a job and having passed a course in the UK gives you something prospective employers will actually care about. Also it gives you time to see what your prospective partner and country are like day-in, day-out - it’s very different from spending two weeks on holiday, however many times you come to visit.

Speaking of visiting, the General Visitor Visa, the stamp an American would get entering the UK without having previously applied for a visa, grants you up to 6-months clearance to be in the UK. That sounds perfect, right? You can live with your Brit and see what life is like without having to line up funds and fill in documents! Sounds perfect, right? Yeah, no. This visa is intended for visitors, and visitors usually travel around for 2 weeks (or a month if you’re particularly flush), do touristy things, and then go home. Going home is the important part. If you plan to come for more than two weeks then they want solid proof that you’re going to go home again - proof that you have a return ticket, a job waiting for you and expecting you back on a certain date, a place to live when you return, over-seas insurance, and funds to cover you for the entirety of your visit, without working. Are you a woman in your 20s and 30s? They’re going to be extra suspicious of you because so many of your sistren have, willfully or through ignorance, broken the rules before you. And no work means no work. You can’t get a job, you can’t baby-sit for the neighbours, you can’t volunteer at the local animal shelter, and you absolutely cannot telecommute for an American company, paying you American dollars into your American bank account. The UKBA says no work means no work means no work. I joined a gym, watched a lot of movies, knit, took up cooking, and read a lot. Yes, it is possible to come over as a tourist and visit your Brit for up to 6-months out of a rolling 12-month period, but your Brit has to be willing and able to support you entirely for the duration of your stay. But if the UKBA has any reason to think you might overstay, you might break the rules, you might be trying to cheat the system, they will bounce your bum back to the US on the next flight, without ever having set foot outside the airport, without having seen your Brit. In the future you won’t be able to enter the UK without having secured a visa ahead of time, and if they think you were lying, if they think you were actively trying to deceive them and not just ignorant or stupid, then they will ban you from entering the country for 10 years. If this is a route you plan to take, be sure you know what you’re doing and the possible consequences. And please remember, if you do lie or cheat then you’re making it that much harder for the next person trying to build a legitimate, legal, life in the UK. Also, you cannot switch from a visitor visa to any other type of visa, and you are not allowed to register to get married, or get married.

My Brit and I are in love and we want to get married. What do we do now?

If you’re living in the US and you want to marry a Brit (with the intention of settling in the UK - I know nothing about bringing your Brit to the US) then your easiest option is to have your Brit go to the US and get married. The US allows visitors to get married as long as they’re not planning to stay. Have your Brit bring a letter from work saying that s/he’s expected back on such-and-such date, and be upfront about why s/he is visiting. Get married, and as soon as you have your marriage certificate, you can apply for a Spousal visa. Once you have your Spousal Visa you may book tickets (if you book them first you may not have your visa and passport back in time to fly), pack up your stuff to ship, and join your Brit as a probationary non-citizen.

If you would prefer to marry your Brit in the UK, then you can either apply for a Marriage Visitor Visa (relatively cheap), come to the UK under the same conditions as the general visitor visa (no NHS, no working) and you have up to 6 months to get married and return to the US, at which point you apply for the Spousal visa and all proceeds as above. Note, this visa is intended for people who do not wish to settle in the UK and, even if you have the visa, if the Inspection Officer (IO) at the gate thinks you’re going to stay, the will bounce you back to the US.

If you want to get married in the UK and want to be able to stay, you need to apply for a Fiancé(e) visa (expensive). This grants you entry to the UK for up to 6-months to get married (or if you and your Brit are the same gender, a civil union - the paperwork is all the same, you just tick a different box) during which time you cannot work. Once you have your marriage (civil union) certificate, you can apply for Further Leave to Remain (Marriage), which costs the same as the Spousal visa, it just has a different name because you’re already in the UK. This is the most expensive way to enter the country as a spouse as the fiancé(e) visa costs about as much as the spousal/FLR(M) visas.

If you’re here on another visa and wish to marry a Brit, then you may do so and once you have your marriage certificate, you apply for FLR(M).

What happens after you get FLR(M)? I don’t know. They’re holding a consultation on the family settlement and should announce changes in the coming months.

Yesterday I accomplished very little

2011-07-14T15:17:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I accomplished very little. The Consultation on Family Migration is up on UKBA's website so I spent a fair amount of the day fuming about the wording of questions and lack of opportunities to share one's actual thoughts, and catching up on UKY to see how my compatriot ex-patriots are reacting. We're putting together a response and "we" actually does include me as I've volunteered to help out. Obviously our response will be skewed towards the ways this would impact immigrants from the US and their usually-British partners.

That's pretty much what I did yesterday. I tend not to look at UKY over the weekend (Chris doesn't like it when I ignore him in favour of the internet) and I'm still not caught up from the turning-30, wedding-planning, school-year-ending, people-visiting, getting-married informal hiatus I took in May/June so there's a lot of posts to read.

I did restart the Swinging Sunday Socks. Knitting loosely wasn't working so I switched from 2.25mm to 2.5mm and it's much closer in size to the first sock. Additionally the 2.5 is 100cm and lace tip, whereas the 2.25 is 80cm (longest the shop had in stock) and blunter, so that's making it easier as well. With all the frogging, I've only just finished the cuff and will start on the leg sometime today.

I finally made it back to the pool today and did 2700m. That's around my usual distance but the clocks were broken so I couldn't say how long it took - I'm guessing I made good time as I'm feeling it a bit in my arms and legs, but it's possible to swim "better" without necessarily swimming faster. I followed this with my first ever bowl of Weetabix (with strawberries on top) so I'm feeling very healthy indeed. Or at least I was until I had nachos for lunch.

The big news for today is that, having made an appointment for early August in Glasgow, we uploaded my application for FLR(M). I say we because my computer refuses to communicate with the printer and everything has to be printed out and signed so I made Chris do it from his computer. I have our marriage certificate and passports, Chris is collecting the financial documents (owning our house, banking and savings account statements), and then we just need passport photos taken. There are photo booths all over the place that do passport photos, so that's no hardship. Chris wants to do his today when we take our constitutional but I want to wait till I get my hair cut next week so I know my hair, at least, looks good.

Our Wedding Vows

2011-07-12T16:20:00.005+01:00

One of the (really, really, really) nice things about our civil ceremony was getting to customize the script to suit us. Our registrar emailed us a couple of PDFs, one a sample ceremony with the parts we couldn't change in bold (the registrar identifying herself, the legal definition of a marriage, identifying ourselves and our being free to marry) but most of it could be anything we wanted. The second PDF was a selection of alternate texts for the vows and optional handfasting. A third PDF was optional readings of a non-religious nature (the one restriction for a civil ceremony is that it can't be religious, though the readings included the famous Corinthians passage without attribution and a few Native American blessings, quotes from Confucius, and other things that made me question their definition of "religion") though we never got around to picking any of those so we went without. Minus the legal parts, our ceremony follows:

Your decision to marry is an expression of your love for each other, your faith in your future together and a sign of your commitment to one another. Marriage means developing and maintaining affection, co-operation, friendship and mutual respect. It calls for honesty, patience, trust and humour. Marriage requires both closeness and distance, the closeness of a couple growing together and sufficient distance to allow each other to grow as an individual.

Vows
Chris/Jennifer, do you promise that you will always protect Jennifer/Chris with your utmost care that you will honour and cherish her/him in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer and in all things you will be to her/him a faithful loving husband/wife?
I do.

exchanging rings
Traditionally, the passage to the status of husband and wife is marked by the exchange of rings. These rings are a symbol of the unbroken circle of love. Love freely given has no beginning and no end, no giver and no receiver for each is the giver and each is the receiver. May these rings always remind you of the declarations you have made to each other.

I give you this ring as a token of my love, wear it always and when we are apart, look upon it and know I am with you, let it be a symbol of our marriage and of the vows we have made today.

These rings have been given and received as a symbol of your love and commitment to one another; however, it is the solemn vows which you have made that will join you together for life.

In some ways tomorrow is going to seem no different than today, but today you have given and received one of the most valuable gifts of life, the gift of true and abiding love within the devotion of marriage. If there is one thing you remember from today, let it be that it was love that brought you here, love which holds you together and love by which your marriage will endure.

hand-fasting
Today you have chosen each other as life partners.
Do you vow to be a faithful husband and wife to each other?
We do.

Do you promise to walk by each other’s side, to love, help and encourage each other, to listen and to care?
We do.

Do you promise to always respect and honour each other as individuals and to be conscious of eachother’s needs?
We do.

I give myself to you as I am and as I will be for all of my life. Whatever may come I will always be there and as I give you my hand to hold so I give you my life to keep.

The knots of this binding are not formed by this cloth but instead by your vows. Either of you may drop the cloth now, for as always you hold in your own hands the making of this union.

Today, you have also given and received one of the most valuable gifts - the gift of true and abiding love within the devotion of marriage. If there is one thing you remember from today let it be that it was love that brought you here, love which holds you together and love by which your marriage will endure.

From this day, let your marriage be a partnership, created for your mutual happiness. May the love with which you have joined hands and hearts today never fail, but grow deeper and stronger with the passing years.

There must have been a veritable dust storm in that little room, judging by the number of people who reported that they, or the person sitting next to them, had something in their eye.

A Tale of Two Socks

2011-07-11T19:26:00.007+01:00

I am about halfway through my second sock and I can't help but notice a problem:

The second sock is significantly smaller than the first. Same needles, same yarn, same pattern - different size. This is, ah, unfortunate and most likely means I'm going to frog it and start over and think loose thoughts. Not too loose, obviously, as loose socks are socks you'll walk through quickly. Bugger.

This happened with the second ladybug (in most thing I will pick the British terminology over the American what with living in the UK and all, but it's a bug not a bird!) booties, too. Maybe my tension increases as my confidence grows? I don't know, but it's definitely something to watch for.

In other news, I started the first sunshine booty (waaaaay too big - going to frog and knit on the 2.25mm needles conveniently freed up by frogging the sock), bought more sock yarn (addicted already!), and bought little yellow buttons for the sunshine sweater.

Also, the knitting needle give-away ends tomorrow! Speak up before they're gone forever.

Today I knit a hat

2011-07-10T22:48:00.005+01:00

Today I knit a hat while watching the Scottish Open, hosted here in my lovely corner of the Highlands. The golfer I was cheering for, selected randomly because I like his name, didn't do well but I think he's previously earned his invitation to the British Open next weekend, so I may or may not continue watching and root for him in an entirely distracted manner. It's worth noting that my only interest in watching today was to see coverage of my new home (and the swanky golf course everyone keeps talking about).

Did you hear about the freaky weather we've been having? I personally have no reference (I've wintered here twice but this is my first summer) but I'm told this isn't a place that gets oodles of rain or thunderstorms and this weekend we've had both - so much so that the golf course flooded and the surrounding hillsides slid down across the course. The thunder woke us both up shortly before 5am, Saturday morning, three or four miles off. It quieted down and we got back to sleep but it continued to rain and occasionally thunder throughout the day - especially over the golf course. We weren't going to watch the match but followed the news throughout the day as they kept postponing the start time before eventually calling it off altogether at 7:30pm. Very disappointing for the Highlands as getting this tournament is quite the coup. Fortunately the sun came out in the evening and things dried up a bit and, while it rained off and on at our place today, the course mostly stayed dry.

Yesterday, we went to the local garden centre and bought oodles of bird food, mostly b1g1, and an African Violet for me. We also got new water bowls for the cats as Chris is convinced that the reason they like drinking from the Christmas Tree stand (yes, we still have it out in July for Oliver and Libby to drink from, no we don't still have the tree) is that it's bigger and they can both drink at the same time. So we bought a really big bowl for downstairs, where the tree stand was (they seem to like it well enough even though it says DOG), and a slightly-smaller-but-still-bigger-than-their-previous-water-bowl bowl with polka dots for upstairs.

Today we slept in, cleaned (I hoovered downstairs and the stairs, Chris did the loos and kitchen) and watched golf. First I finished attaching sleeves to the sunshine sweater, knit the collar, and wove in the ends. I'm not a huge fan of assembling sweaters and think I'll seek out knit-in-one patterns for the foreseeable future. Then I cast on the matching hat and finished that over Top Gear. I started casting on the booties, modifying the knit-flat pattern to a knit-in-the-round pattern on the fly but I realized I did half the CO with the tail, not the main thread and frogged the whole thing. That'll wait till tomorrow.

Anyway, hat is finished, sweater just needs buttons, and the booties should follow quickly. Pictures will have to wait as they're a gift and the recipient should get them before seeing a lot of pictures on the web. I'm wacky like that.

An Immigrant Should Occasionally Blog About Immigration

2011-07-07T19:14:00.008+01:00

Since it's a FAQ in my life, no being married to an Englishman (in Scotland) does not automatically confer British citizenship. It doesn't even grant me residency or any other thing that would make living with my husband, well, possible. What it does grant me (other than a mutual promise to live together and cherish each other for ever and ever and always) is the chance to apply for Further Leave to Remain (Married). "Futher", because I'm already in the country (it would be a Spousal visa if I weren't) and "Leave to Remain" because I don't have to leave. Yet. FLR(M) is good for two years at which time, under the current system*, I can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain and stay, well, indefinitely - unless I leave the country for two years (I'd get to start all over should I wish to return). ILR is, among other things, a requirement for citizenship. Each of these requires an application to be filled out, fees to be paid, and documents submitted.

That's where I am now - filling out the application for FLR(M). How this one works is I download the interactive PDF (my first experience with one of these) which is saved on my computer. They estimate it will take about 3.5hrs to complete, not including the time needed to gather supporting evidence. I found this estimate to be somewhat...generous, though I did have to save it and consult a friend from UKY** as to the specific timings referred to by two questions: When did you decide to live together as a married couple? and When did you start living together? She concurs that they mean when did we get engaged and we started living together when I came over this last August on my student visa. The six months I spent here the previous winter I was "visiting" not "living with", an important immigration distinction. I emailed the PDF to my husband to look over and he quibbled over some answers (I got the correct number of years he'd lived in the UK (his whole life) but miscounted by a month) and agreed that it looks ready to be submitted.

Only I can't submit it yet. See, when I submit the application, I'll upload it to the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) website, indicate if I've booked an in-person appointment or will be mailing it in - if mailing pay the £550 fee; if in-person, pay £850 at the time of appointment - collect the supporting documents that will be requested at time of submission, and either bring them to the appointment (along with my husband) or mail them in with the official version of my application that I need to print out and sign (presumably along with my husband).

Did you catch the problems there? If I want an in-person appointment, I have to book it before I upload my application. They won't tell me which supporting documents I require until after I upload my application. Now, because I hang out on an immigration forum I have a fairly good idea what will be required - a recent UK-size passport photo, our marriage certificate, utility bills in both our names (or each, but ours are in both), paystubs and bank statements showing we have at least £106 each month after taxes and paying the mortgage, a copy of the mortgage. All of these have to be "original documents" which can be a problem in the modern world of online-statements and online billing. We switched back to paper statements after trying to get "authorized copies" for my Tier 4 (student) Visa.

But if they ask for something I don't expect? I saw on UKY that other people who are switching from Tier 4 to FLR(M) are including a letter from their university saying they're attending and passing all of their courses. Do I need such a document or are they providing excessive paperwork? Having booked my appointment, I'll have a limited amount of time in which to procure any supplemental documents, but I have to book an appointment before my current visa runs out in 41 days. And yes, booking an in-person appointment (in Glasgow) is more expensive than applying by post but I'd get a same-day decision rather than 3-4 months of limbo that I'd get if I apply by post. 3-4 months of limbo, living in a foreign country without my passport or the visa showing that I'm allowed to be here.

What's involved in booking an in-person appointment? I'm glad you asked: I went to the in-person appointment page, read through all the guidances, noted that Glasgow is my closest appointment centre (that's the other side of Scotland from Inverness), and "registered" to book an appointment. First I had to verify that I'm read all the regulations - that I'm applying for a visa that can use the in-person service, that I'm not booking an appointment for more than 10 members of a family unit, and a few other questions I can't remember. Second, they needed an easy-to remember but difficult to guess word between 8 and 12 characters, all letters. I picked one, typed it in, and wrote it down on a pad of paper: "UKBA: Memorable word: MEMORABLEWORD***". My word is, therefore, hard to guess unless you A) have ever met me or B) can find the large legal pad sitting next to my laptop with "UKBA: Memorable word: MEMORABLEWORD" blazoned across the top. On the next page they asked for my first and last names, my phone number - preferably a mobile so that they may send me an sms, and a valid email address. Since it's just me, I didn't have to enter information for anyone else. On the fourth page I'm asked to verify that my name, phone number, and email are all correct and enter the 2nd, 4th, and last character of my memorable word. Apparently they're already worried that someone may be trying to impersonate me.

That's it - my application to register is complete. Wait, my application to register? I'm not actually registered? That's correct. I got an email telling me that my application was being reviewed. Later I got an email saying that I'm registered and here's a 9-digit Reference ID and a 16-character Transaction ID which, along with randomly requested characters from my Memorable Word, will allow me to log-in and attempt to book an in-person appointment.

Or I could've called the application centre's phone number and booked an appointment over the phone.

That's where I've left things for today.

* I say "current system" because later this week they're going to announce changes to the family settlement route, changes that are expected to include extending the probationary period before you can apply for ILR to 5 years and, of course, the semi-annual fees hike. The UKBA does not believe in "grandfathering" people in - when they move the goal post, I have to aim for the new one. This means I, and every other settlement-seeker, am aiming for a goal-post that will be somewhere else by the time I reach it.

** UK Yankee, a forum for US citizens living in the UK

*** not my Memorable Word

The Other Bridesmaid Shawls

2011-07-05T14:53:00.004+01:00

Flower Basket Shawl - Evelyn A. Clark
King Cole "Riot" - Magic 404 - 100g/296m - 70% Acrylic, 30% wool
I wasn't sure when Miss Krissy was going to find my blog, what with it being linked to hers*, so I didn't want to post pictures before I gave it to her, but now I can! The pattern knit up fairly quickly. I wasn't able to memorize the pattern until chart B, but once I got there I could "see" the lace and how each row followed the proceeding row and it went very quickly from there. I added a few extra repeats (11 in total) to make it an actual shawl, not just a shoulder-warmer and used most of two rows in doing so. The second skein of yarn had some knots in it, always frustrating, and split when I was trying to untwist it which was even more frustrating. The colours were similar to the ones Krissy wanted to dye her hair for the wedding, and worked out better than planned as she didn't put any green in her hair but some of the colours in her hair took a greenish tinge as they faded and bleed. Her youngest doesn't like to wear warm clothes but gets cold, and Miss Krissy found the shawl useful to tie around herself and the baby when she's wearing her.

I understand why people advise against knitting lace in variegated yarn as, as the rows got longer and the colour-pools shallower, the pattern got a bit lost. I enjoyed the pattern and may knit another one, in solid or semi-solid for myself. For Miss Krissy, I think the colours are more important than the lace.

Annis - Susanna IC
Patton's Grace, Artessano 100% Alpaca 4-ply
And this is Miss Laura's shawl. I actually knit it twice as the first one didn't look right after I blocked it - the needles were too large for the yarn, which created a nice drape but made it impossible to weave in the ends in the middle of the fabric. Since it's mostly knit in short rows, I couldn't change skeins of yarn at the edge. I bought two skeins of Alpaca in a colour-way that I felt would be even more appropriate for Miss Laura and knit it on smaller needles and the pile of the yarn and smaller stitches worked better for hiding the ends I had to weave in. I wanted to make it bigger than the pattern but was worried about running out of yarn again so I didn't, and it turned out a bit on the small side - definitely a scarf and not a shawl, and the top rolls, but it is very suited to Miss Laura's personality. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of Miss Laura's shawl before I gave it to her and I have no specific pictures of any of the shawls after gifting them.

* she didn't find it until I specifically gave her the link today. Hi, Miss Krissy!

Knitting Needle Give-Away

2011-07-05T12:33:00.006+01:00

My first give-away!*

For Christmas my then-fiancé-now-husband gave me a set of KnitPro intercheangeable wood needles. This giveaway is not for them but rather for some of the cheap needles I bought when I was first learning to knit and no longer need - and I want them out of my knitting box. In all honesty, I doubt I need half the needles I am keeping, outwith my interchangeables, but you never know when you're going to want a second circ for a Turkish CO or when I may wish to use DPNs rather than Magic Loop for a project. It could happen.

In the meantime, I have some needles with which I am willing to part:

Straight Pins:
~~Clover "Bamboo Premium", size 5.0mm (8US), 32cm(9in) long~~

DPNS:
Bryspun Bry-Flex (plastic), size 4.5mm (7US), 5in long, set of 5
Bryspun Bry-Flex (plastic), size 4.0mm (6US), 5in long, set of 5

Circulars:
Susan Bates (metal), 4.5mm (7US), 81cm (32") long
Susan Bates (metal), 5.5mm (9US), 81cm (32") long - no packaging
Clover "Bamboo Premium", size 4.5mm (7US), 41cm(16in) long - no packaging
Clover "Bamboo Premium", size 5.0mm (8US), 41cm(16in) long - 3 pairs (don't ask - I already gave away a fourth), packaging for one pair

That's it. Those are the needles with which, at this time, I wish to part. I have no idea how much it'd cost to post them so while I'll most likely cover it within mainland UK (especially if you'll take all of them off my hands), I make no promises. If no-one wants them by this time next Tuesday (12 July) I'm taking them to my local knitting night, and after that to a charity shop. If more than one person asks for any given pair of needles I will make an arbitrary decision, blah blah blah.

* Saying it like this makes it sound like I'm a cool blogger with lots of readers who regularly gives away nifty things to those readers. This is far, far from the truth.

I'm going to run out of sock puns in short order

2011-07-04T12:03:00.004+01:00

I'm going to run out of sock puns in short order so I'll save what few I have for special occasions - such as actually finishing a sock (not even a pair, just one). It is knitting up fairly quickly now that I'm actually knitting again though yesterday we slept in till noon (I'd wake up, see Chris was still asleep and roll over; he'd wake up, see that I was still asleep and roll over...) and then I lay out in the garden for a bit because it was actually sunny and warm for the first time in at least a month and having watched 3 more episodes of Game of Thrones the day before my Song of Fire and Ice reread was calling to me. It's not so much that I forgot how good the books are as I deliberately wasn't thinking about it as the wait between books is so long. But I read a few chapters on the lawn and then dead-headed my rose bushes and chopped the big one back down to about six feet tall. She wants to take over the world and I want her to keep flowering and not eat people. I am somewhat miffed that it started blooming right when we left to get married and I came back to find those early roses had already died. Fortunately there's oodles more. I actually get two very different types of roses on the big bush, little single-row white roses and bigger pink tea roses. They're dark coral as buds but blossom a very delicate pink.

That done and the sun behind clouds I came inside, caught up on my social networks and knit a little while Chris watched Wimbledon. I keep forgetting that he played tennis when he was a little lad. Not my idea of an exciting sport, but then none of the sports he likes are my idea of exciting. After that ended, he went to do some work in the office (upstairs) and I watched an episode from season 3 of Doctor Who (I'm almost up to Blink!) and had to model his sock on my own foot which may have been a mistake as he's now convinced that I'm going to keep them for myself. Then I made dinner, mini shells with peas and pancetta, and we watched Top Gear, House, and a Stargate:SG1.

I don't think I'm going to tell you what all telly I watch in a day as it sounds like (and is) a rather un-flattering amount of telly. But telly, especially telly I've seen before, is great background for when I'm knitting. My hands are busy but my eyes and ears get bored. I tune out music too easily and I don't like audio books, so telly is my best option.

Nothing Much is Happening

2011-07-01T19:39:00.006+01:00

Since last I've updated: I've reknit the left side of the baby sweater to include button holes and started the second sleeve; I've knit another repeat of the lace pattern for my first sock and have started the heel, though I'm not yet ready to turn it; I've been gifted a giant sofa doily/shawl (I believe it's a silk blend) and a bag of silk yarn in red (7 50g/124m balls and most of an 8th, and, oh yeah, I got married. You are now reading the blog of Mrs Christopher Aves.

Cascading Hearts Faroese Shawl - Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer
Misti Alpaca, Tonos Carnaval: Symphony Blue - 100g/400m - 50% Alpaca/30% Merino/10% Nylon/10% Silk
Pardon the extra large picture, but I've been wanting to crow about this shawl since I finished knitting it several months ago and this is the only picture I have of it blocked. Chris and I picked the Cascading Hearts pattern of off Ravelry and I had hearts embroidered on my dress to match. I also picked up a heart shawl pin to secure my shawl (not that you really need one with a Faroese shawl), and everything was done in blues to accent the tartan of Chris' kilt and, even though it rained all day, it was too warm to wear it. So this is the only picture (though another aunt took the same picture), when I modelled it for my mother and her sisters. I would be heartbroken that, after waiting so long to use it, I never put it on except the day was so amazingly wonderful that I can't be upset about the things that genuinely went wrong, let alone something as small as not getting to show off my shawl. The yarn was lovely to work with. I used about 2 and a half skeins and keep eyeing the remainder for a hat, mittens, or neck-warmer.

The Socks Progress Apace

2011-06-20T10:42:00.005+01:00

Sunday Swing Socks - Kristel Nyberg
Fortissima Colori, Socka Colori - 100g/420m - 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide

I don't know how long I'll have to write this as I'm expecting Miss Krissy and her family in the next span of time. The Socks got immeasurably less interminable once past the 1x1 rib and the first two repeats of the pattern flew by. I kept making Fiancé (in six days, Husband) try the cuff on and he kept insisting it was a good fit but I eventually convinced him that, no really, they were too big.

So I frogged them and started over, one size down (CO 72 stitches, no 80). He hates it when I frog things, it makes him very sad to think of the wasted time and effort, but he's getting used to it as ripping things back is at least a weekly occurrence around here. So I ripped it out and loosened my tension for the ribbing, which helped and knowing that after the ribbing things would get fun again helped, and I'm once again two repeats through the pattern and it's a significantly better fit.

I am really excited about this whole "knitting socks" thing. I can't wait to have a drawer full of cute socks in different styles, yarns, and colours.

Ginko Leaf Shawl for Miss Rachel

2011-06-16T15:16:00.004+01:00

Ginko Shoulderette Shawl - Maggie Magali
Artesano 4 ply 100% superfine alpaca - 50g/187m - 100% alpaca

I am making shawls for each of my bridesmaids (though not as their thank you presents) and this is the one for Miss Rachel. The knitting itself was easy, though I ocassionally had to tink back half a row when I forgot the pattern mirrors from the centre, unlike the geometric shawls I've been knitting where you just repeat the same pattern again. Not a difficult concept, just one I seemed to have trouble keeping in my head.

I added one extra repeat of the pattern to make it a smidge larger and, of course, ran out of yarn one row before the bind off. Fortunately the shop where I bought it still had the same dye-lot in stock, but I had to set it aside for a few days while waiting for that, and then when I went to block it I realized that I would need at least 3 times as many t-pins as I own (I mentioned I'm new to this whole "blocking" thing, right?) as I can't use my wires to shape the leaves, so I had to wait another almost week for those to arrive.

It took an hour to pin it out and I still could have used another 25 pins to good effect but it's good enough to government work. Hopefully this will dry quickly as the first of my wedding guests are showing up tonight - 3 days before originally planned because they decided Paris is not the place for them - and I told Noah (who can't afford to take all the time off so he's telecommuting) that he could use my office. My itty-bitty, little office, one third of which is taken up by Wedding Stuff and now another third is this shawl.

It is a beautiful pattern and the yarn is soft a lovely but I think, for me, I'll stick to easier-to-block geometric patterns for the time being.

FO: Summer Mystery Shawl

2011-06-14T19:27:00.005+01:00

Summer Mystery Shawl 2011 - Wendy D.
Supreme Possum Merino 4ply - 50g/210m - 40% possum, 50% merino wool, 10% silk
60"x32" - 380m

I finished this shawl last night, washed it this morning, and it's blocking as I type. Forgive the particularly bad picture - my office is the only room I can keep the kittens out of where I can block the shawl and also the room where we're keeping all the wedding stuff - mostly in boxes stacked in corners. Then there's my desk and chair and did I mention it's the smallest room in the house?

I love this shawl. I was worried it would be too small, even though I added an extra repeat. I'd originally cast on two extra repeats (on each side of the center) but unblocked that had almost as large as this is blocked and I'd thought that too big, and then I worried it was too small, but I think this will be nice. I do think, in the future, that I will try to block shawls to be a little longer across the wingspan and a little less deep.

It's nice to have knit something I can actually use and show off. Between my wedding shawl and things I'm knitting for other people, I keep wanting to throw on something recently-knit and coming up short.

CO: Socks

2011-06-13T15:37:00.005+01:00

Sunday Swing Socks - Kristel Nyberg
Fortissima Colori, Socka Colori - 100g/420m - 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide

I have recently been jonesing to knit a pair of socks. I've been intimidated by them before, fearing I'd suffer from Second Sock Syndrome - obviously something I'm prone too with my knitting ADD - and a worry that I'd put all the time, effort, and money (yarn and needles) into making a pair of socks and then just walk through the toe and heel like I do with all my cotton, store-bought socks. I am a great one for walking through the heels of socks, so this isn't a small concern. But this last winter I knit several pairs of mitts, almost a pair of gloves (which sounds like Second Sock Syndrome but I figured out what I didn't like about them and have plans to finish), and a pair of baby booties, so there's evidence that I can concentrate long enough to knit a pattern twice. And, having mentioned my sock fears to friends, I've been assured that hand-knit socks, done right, are superior to store-bought socks in every way - more comfortable and less likely to wear-through.

As my successfully-completed pile of knitting has increased, I've found myself increasingly attracted to sock patterns. I have a thing for socks in general and my fiancé has a specific thing for socks (on me - he's never attacked an in-store display) but I live in a small, remote city without access to things like stores that specialize in hosiery and while I know that I can order things online, I have a great reluctance to do so. I'm great at the "add to cart" part but somehow stall out at the "pay" part of the transaction. Who gets buyers remorse before they actually purchase something? So I see these nifty sock patterns and I started thinking "I want those! I need them!" and when we were in Edinburgh over my birthday, I bought two skeins of sock yarn - a variegated blue for my Fiancé and a variegated purple for me.

My Fiancé is my guinnea pig (he doesn't mind) so the first pair is for him and he picked Sunday Swing from the "mello" section on Knitty. I'm 8 rows in to an inch of 1x1 rib (0.75") and so far my sock related thoughts are, "save me from 1x1 ribbing on 2.5mm needles!" The pattern calls for 2.25mm (US 1) needles, but half mm sizes are easier to get here in the UK. If I were the type to knit a gauge I'd say I've adjusted accordingly but, confession time, I don't. The nice thing about socks is that you can make your Fiancé try them on and adjust thusly.

Speaking of needles, I CO using the magic loop method but decided my longest cable isn't quite comfortable so I'm using two pairs of addi premiums, originally purchased to do a Turkish CO for the baby booties.

Knitting in Pubs

2011-06-12T16:27:00.003+01:00

My Fiancé and I joined a friend in a local pub last night for mixers (me) and pints (the boys). We grabbed the table as soon as the couple who had been sitting there get up, before it was cleared, and while the wait staff eventually cleared most of the dishes (they never got the sugar bowl or a random glass), they never took the tip money that was left on the table. It was only £3, but we spent most of the evening joking about how hard it is to get wait staff to take your money. I ordered some chips and, after last call, a girl brought me the tab - or at least she almost did. She got as far as our table, saw the tip money (sitting on a saucer with the previous occupants' receipt) and took it and my tab away. Now, the pile of coins to cover my chips was also sitting on the table, but when we'd left it was still there. I guess the moral of the story is that, if you want a tip, you should pick it up off of the table.

I brought the baby sweater as I figured a small, easy project would be best. As it is, I kept missing the changes for the basket weave (when it changed vertically) and had to drop and pick up the stitches correctly on more than one occasion. I am increasingly less enamoured of the Baby Rico. I really liked it when I bought it, and for both pairs of leggins and the teal sweater, but by the end of the red sweater, well, I guess the honeymoon was over. I'll finish these skeins and subsequent new babies will get fewer items knit from more expensive fiber.

On the Needles

2011-06-11T17:59:00.005+01:00

I have two projects I'm working on atm, a red shawl for me and a yellow baby sweater for Baby O'Connor:

Summer Mystery Shawl 2011 - Wendy D.
Supreme Possum Merino 4ply - 50g/210m - 40% possum, 50% merino wool, 10% silk
This is my first Mystery Shawl - a pattern where you don't know what the finished object will be (other than, in this case, a "shawlette") and you get the instructions ("clues") over a span of weeks, rather than all at once. The idea is to finish each set of instructions before the next one is issued. I joined this one later, before the third clue had been released and then accidentally knit the second clue first so I had to frog everything and start over. When the third clue came out, I only had time to knit the 24-row repeat once before setting the project aside to work on shawls for my bridesmaids so the fourth and final clue came out and I was nowhere near ready. I've since done two more repeats of the third clue and, because I added an extra repeat to the shawl, probably only have two more. It's bottom up so with each row there are less stitches to knit and it's going, ahem, increasingly quickly.

Basket-Weave Baby Sweater - Frances Hughes - Creative Knitting Sept. 2004
Baby Classic DK - 50g/151m - 50% acrylic, 50% nylon
Back when I started working for Barnes and Nobles, when magazines didn't sell, the covers were "stripped" and returned to the publishers and the rest of the magazine was recycled or thrown away (depending on the facilities available to that particular store) or, and this is the relevant part, employees could take them home. During this time, I acquired a lot of issues of a variety of knitting magazines (which I eventually tore apart and sorted the patterns I liked into plastic sleeves and binders - yeah, I'm that person). When I moved to Inverness I pared this collection down to bare bones and, even though I wasn't at the time knitting any fitted garments, I kept this pattern for a baby sweater, hat, and booties. I don't think it'll be a favourite pattern, but it's a nice project for when I'm lying (sitting up) in bed and have caught up on my RSS feeds and Twitter.

I learned to knit at a Renaissance Faire and loaned yarn and needles from one friend and taught to knit by another. This second friend is allergic to the wool I was using and taught me without touching anything and as a consequence my technique wound up a little...unique. For a while I was twisting my stitches and when I realized that, I changed my technique to prevent twisting and somehow wound up getting everything backwards. This was fine for most things, but both my k2tog and ssk leaned the same way and I only just recently realized why (I was wrapping my yarn around the needle the wrong way) and decided to fix it. A few projects ago I corrected my purl stitches so my stockinette lace would be correct and on this project I'm practising wrapping the yarn under the needle on the knit stitches.

This sweater set will be for Baby O'Connor, who is due later this summer. His mother is having a really rough time of it and they're hoping to induce as soon as the foetus is viable, so if I have time, I hope to knit some premie-sized stuff as well.

Baby Baby Baby

2011-06-09T11:56:00.003+01:00

I have reached that age when all of my friends seem to be spawning (whereas five years ago they were all getting married - I guess I'm a late bloomer) and I have finally decided to try my hand at knitting baby garments. Some four years ago I knit a beautiful baby blanket, which is still sitting in my closet, unblocked and the ends un-woven in, and that was when I realized I wasn't yet ready to knit gifts. Too many of my projects languish unfinished or are judged unsuitable. I did go on to knit a couple of "stroller blankets" for co-workers' spawn out of acrylics as I figured if I don't have to weave in the ends (and could rather melt them discretely) then I wouldn't give up at the end.

But I'm trying to expand my knitting repertoire, to face new challenges, and when you're posting things to friends it's more difficult to have the "this blanket is for supervised use only - don't leave it on your baby, asleep in the other room - as heaven forfend there should be a fire, rather than burning like plant fibres or self-extinguishing like animal fibres, it will melt and when you go to pull it off your baby it will take his or her skin with it" talk. So natural fibres and the need to weave in ends.

I started with baby leg-warmers as I figure two little tubes would be perfect - no heels to turn, no seams to sew up, just a little tube and two ends to weave in. Easy! I started with the simply titled "Baby Legwarmers" and then another pattern from the same lady, "Super Simple Baby Legwarmers" but by the time I finished them the far-away baby I had in mind had grown beyond them. Has anyone else noticed that the majority of babies they know are at least in the 90th percentile of growth for their age?

But more friends announced they were pregnant and I had all this yarn, so I figured I'd start a baby sweater. This would be my second-ever fitted garment and sewing up seams seemed about as appealing as weaving in ends and a lingering fear of blocking, so I picked a very simple, top down, seamless sweater, "Cuddly Wrap Baby Sweater". Not knowing the gender of the expected baby, I made it in teal and it knit up in no time at all so I decided to try my hand at another, a "Seamless Yoked Baby Sweater" again knit from the top down, with the sleeves held on stitch-holders to be knit after completing the body. I learned a technique for slipping the first stitch of a round to make stitch or colour changes knit in a round look less disjointed.

Inspired by my sweater efforts I decided to make a matching hat and wound up using the carried-over stitch pattern from the second sweater with another hat pattern and came up with the "Slipped Stitch Baby Hat". I added the left-over button from the matching sweater as an added detail.

As long as I was going for a set (though the red leggings lack the slip stitch), I knit up a pair of "Fleegles Seamless Saartje Booties" a seamless variation on a popular baby bootie.

I posted all but the teal (super simple) legwarmers to Baby Stephanie, born a week and a half ago.

Hello World!

2011-06-09T11:37:00.000+01:00

I've recently started reading knitting blogs and I realized that I also want to write one. I'm on Ravelry and am trying to put usefull notes in my project details because when I'm looking to knit a pattern I enjoy reading other peoples' experiences, but while it's a useful record of the various patterns I've knit, it doesn't say much about me as a knitter.

I currently have a lot of free time. I'm a full-time student (until next week when the semester and the year end) but the exams are over and I only have a couple of projects left. I moved to Inverness, Scotland from San Francisco, California to be with my then-boyfriend, now-fiancé (and in two weeks and a few days, my husband!) so I don't have a lot of local friends placing demands on my time, either. When I came through immigration they were surprised at how much yarn I had stashed in my suitcase and wanted to know if I was planning to make things to sell. I come from a place where scarves and hats are purely decorative and I've never owned a pair of mittens, and now I'm going to spend winter 20 degrees further north than I've ever been, 0.5 degrees shy of the Arctic Circle. No, I explained, I'm planning on knitting my first cold-weather accessories for myself. Also, I'd previously checked out the Inverness yarn scene and while you'd think living in close proximity to all those sheep would mean lots of beautiful, local yarns, all I found was one little crafts and hobbies store with mostly big-brand synthetic yarn. I am happy to report that the shop is under new management and they've significantly increased the amount and quality of yarns they stock and I am doing my humble best to keep them in business. Their needle supply is still on the paltry side (cheap brand, limited sizing) but I have no trouble ordering needles online whereas I really want to see and fondle yarn before I buy.

There are a bunch of things I've recently finished that I haven't wanted to post about in my previous journal as they are mostly gifts for people who follow it or wedding-related surprises. As no one yet reads this blog, I figure I'm pretty safe.