Penance.
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Manic Stage

I think I'm in the manic stage...just kidding. I don't think I'm a true manic/depressive. Is there such a thing as having a mild case? (My sister has the real thing.)

(I apologize to those who expect knitting content here. Just working out the brainspazms, I'll be back to normal soon.)

Things are getting better and better!
1. Unkymoods is back! Why do I love those little yellow caricatures so?
2. Had a Cadbury's Easter Creme Egg yesterday. Can you get them in the States? I hope so. Gooey, drippy mega-dose of sugar and chocolate. It is a trend up here, seems to me, that the best kind of new chocolate bar (candy bar) is a new flavour variety of an old one. White chocolate is popping up everywhere! Now if they could just make a white chocolate Easter Creme Egg...
3. My second dishcloth is not turning out to be a painfully tight penance. Soon I can start something real.
4. I surfed some other knitblogs, and saw on Curls&Purls NYC : Flylady!!! I had quite forgotten about her. Tried to sign up about 3 years ago, but I had an unworkable, unmemorable id name and a yahoo mail I couldn't remember and never checked, so... But this time will be different! Yahoo!! Yippee!

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*Sigh*
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Need!

Ooooh yeah, pms-y Kathen's gonna put this on her sidebar. Grumble grumble grumble.


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Lookin' Up!

This News Flash just in:

The unusual quiet noticed by the Mamma last night has been explained by a dejected teenaged girl this morning. Lately, this young girl has been observed washing the dishes while digging the sounds of Hot 101.1 FM, Brandon Manitoba's purveyor of all irritating noises of the Blingy, Chingy, Diddy, Rappy, Hippy-Hoppy ,and Poppy varieties.

But yesterday, all that changed. Apparently, at noon yesterday, Most Depressing Day, rappy-hippity-hoppy became: 101.1 The Farm!

Yes! It's true! The teenage girl, a.k.a. DD17, is hanging a lip, but apparently it's nothing like the severe reaction from the Phat Kid. She "hates the oldies", according to DD17, who was bombarded with 70's and 80's as an infant, toddler, child, youngster...by her cruel parents. Yes, the music of my youth is now OLDIES. ahem.

Older folks were spotted around Kathenville with faraway smiles today. We don't listen to country, but we also won't have to be listening to blingy rappy hippy hoppy anymore. Things are Lookin' Up!




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Ha! Knew it!

Ha! I knew there was a reason for today. I just heard on the radio that some Brits did a study, and Today, January 24, 2005, is the Most Depressing Day of the Year. Among their reasons was that Christmas is over, the bills have rolled in, nobody has any energy, and it's Monday.

Homestarrunner worked a little at home. Here at work, I think I'll go to Weeble and listen to the Chocolate song. Dancing Cadbury Easter Creme Eggs. Yeah.

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Cwap.

Whatta lousy week. I have been avoiding posting 'cause I have no knitting news. Whoopdie-do. Still no news. This post is pure therapy--for me. Stop reading now, I suck.

I have been knitting a round dishcloth in black or navy (I can't tell) Bernat Handicrafter Cotton on size 10 (2-1/2 mm?) needles as a sort of punishment for myself. If the work was any tighter, it would be impossible. It'll scrub really good.

I think I will try to download some Homestarrunner sounds in an attempt to cheer myself up. I can't wait to delete or close something and hear Homestar say, "Baleeted!!"

That would make me feel better. Maybe.

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Round Straights

Well folks, I split up my turtleneck onto straight back-and-forth knitting, and what a relief! I know it doesn't look like a straight needle, but thanks to my marvelous Boye Knitmaster kit (That's Denise needles for all you young'uns) I have very flexible straight needles. It only took one row for the work to feel relaxed and right again. Sigh.

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ButtonBreak

This is a great button for Stitchy McYarnpants, I hope it turns out ok.

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Impressed

Very impressed was I, by the neat rows of buttons and the clean lines of the Knitlet blog, and I decided that my blog looked cluttered, like my kitchen. Time to take my rudimentary HTML skills and try once more to get the sidebar in order.

If you are reading this, take a look to the right. You may or may not see neat rows of buttons there. I tried, but it ended up looking like a snowplow had piled them in a heap, which squished into the posts. That and Unkymoods has disappeared--how depressing. I hope it comes back, they're cute.

Somebody please tell me if I am "stealing bandwidth". I think all the buttons are now pictures posted to my blog, with links under them. How do you "Make" a button, anyone? I use good ol' Paint on my Windows '98, and send it to Blogger with HelloPicasa.

It works for me, but if anyone sees themselves on my button collection and doesn't like the button, let me know. (I know I want to replace Stitchy McYarnpants with one of her new spiffy ones.)

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The Reason

The Real Reason I haven't posted in the new year...

So this is the real reason I have not posted much in the new year: sheer and total embarrassment. This is the reason for the embarrassment: my complete lack of respect for a perfectly good, perfectly simple pattern.

The pattern is a Neckwarmer from an old (because I bought it, ancient is when my mom bought it,ha ha) Patons pattern book of goofy accessories. (When I say goofy, I mean Black and Neon Fairisle hats. Need I say more?)

Now this pattern is simple. Do a front, do a back, seam one shoulder, pick up some stitches around the neck, straight knit a big chunk of k2p2 rib for a turtleneck, and sew up one seam. What's so hard about that, you may ask?

Nothin'! There is nothing tough about this, but Kathen just hasta mess with a perfectly good pattern, because she has delusions of grandeur. ("Oh, I used to knit fairisle sweaters, I'm a big shot.")

HA! Ya know why I used to knit fairisle sweaters in the round? Because I used to HATE TO PURL. There. I've admitted it. (My middle name is Pearl, for fsake. Thanks, Baba. Cool knitter's name.)

It is only since I have taken up knitting this last time, that something in my peabrain-to-fingers-network snapped, and I discovered myself purling with wild, carefree abandon, just as if it was just a flipside to the coin, and not a torturous dark side.

So anyway, the old feeling of "must use circs at all costs" snuck in and took over, so I sewed up both shoulder seams and started to work in the round instead of working back and forth a la the pattern.

Whatta mistake! The shorter (16"?) circ was really too long for a turtleneck, the stitches were really too stretched out. So I tried to change to two circulars, because I remembered the website instructions--sort of. I went around and around, accidentally changed directions, went around 1-1/2 times, changed directions, ½ a round, changed directions, started back. STOPPED. What the heck have I done?!?

Well. I decided to relocate my two-circ instructions, or split the work back onto straight needles again, whatever came first by the time I had finished all that crazy un-knitting. One stitch at a time. Ribbet, ribbet, ribbet.

Now I am going around ve-e-e-ry slowly on two circs. It is not really that comfy. I am trying to decide whether splitting it up and straight-knitting is advisable. If I have not reached the "fold" point of the turtleneck, maybe I will.

All this happened because I was scared to follow my desire -- knitting a real sweater, one with pieces you sew together, a sweater that contains some purling.

We ain't afraid of no stinkin' purling. Anymore. I shouldn't have to keep telling myself that. By the time I have finished this stinkin' neckwarmer, I WILL BELIEVE.



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-35!!!

It is a bone-chillin', eyelid-freezin', nasty minus 35 degrees Celsius here on my little chunk of the Canadian Prairies.
How cold is that? Well, for anyone "Down South" who reads this:
We have electric heaters built into the engine blocks of our cars, so we can plug them in at night. It takes about an hour, according to DTH, to warm up the engine enough so that it will start in the morning.
We have a little thing called "Wind Chill" rating. If the wind is blowing at all, they report the temperature on the radio, not in actual degrees, but either how cold it feels out there, or how many minutes it takes exposed skin to freeze.
Today, it feels like minus 48. Exposed skin will freeze in less than a minute. Have a nice day!?!

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Pressure

Well. I have been avoiding this for the past week, this posting stuff. My last post turned out unexpectedly crackin'. I was pumped. Then Christmas happened. By the time I got back to the internet to post again, some nice people had posted some nice comments about my last post, and I got all weirded out: the pressure to do another brilliant mildly funny post had me paralyzed.


I did knit at Christmastime, though. This ad with the free hat pattern, from an old issue of Interweave Knits (Winter 2003), had been bugging me since I first saw it. I wanted to knit this hat, desperately, but I had no idea what Artful Yarns "Virtue" yarn might be like. I was holding out hope that I would somehow get to one of the "Fine Yarn Stores Everywhere" where this stuff was sold. Nope. A year later, and I still haven't gotten close to such a yarn store.

But in the past few months, reading all the inspirational blogs out there in knit-blog-land, a little something must have rubbed off. I finally read the pattern again, and noticed the nice little tension (gauge) recommendation. Duh! I knitted a swatch, and whaddayaknow, knitting with these five strands together came out to the recommended tension for three strands of Virtue. Three strands of rainbow Sox, and two strands of really old "Sayelle Knitting Worsted". (What does "sayelle" mean, anyway, acrylic? I don't recall seeing sayelle on any labels lately. Hmm.)

So I started knitting away, using my marvelous wiggly straight needles (Boye Knitmaster). The colour was exactly as I was hoping it would look. I found you really need to pay attention when you are knitting with five strands at once; it would only take one or two errant loops sticking out to wreck the look.
The only problem is the style is not one I am used to, it only covers the top halfs of my ears. Perhaps if I had less hair. Allow me to show you the hat, modelled by the phantom husband, whose hair is much shorter.

This is indeed what happened when I got DTH to model a hat so I could take a picture. I promised his face would not show, but you could imagine the pained expression he wore, even though the camera angle didn't show much face. DD17 took pity on his discomfort, and blacked out the evidence using PhotoImpression 4. The Yarn Harlot was right when she said (Oct27/04) that husbands made the most reluctant models.




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