BklnQ

Cold, still ice on the ground, but no more coming down, so far.

We’re back from Dallas and the Little Monster has never been happier. She follows us around the apartment like she’s afraid that we will leave again. She protested when just I went to the grocery.

The newfound love and affection hasn’t prevented her from adding a few more scratches to my hand. Three whole days without a hand to gnaw on. We had a service come in a feed and play with her as well as scoop out the litter-box, but we couldn’t ask them to sacrifice a limb. Only one revenge pee in three and a half days is pretty good though.

Dallas was fine. The trip was surprisingly hassle-free and all legs of the trip were on-time or earlier. The weather was perfect—80° on Thursday, almost as warm on Friday. I even got to knit outside for a while until I started to doze off.

We celebrated Mom’s birthday at Mario & Alberto’s in North Dallas—Tex-Mex, of course. There is certainly better in Dallas, but my sister and niece are not so adventurous. And no waiters were harmed despite their having sung Happy Birthday to my mom. I wouldn’t have dared.

Knitting

I had intended to finish the the second KPPPM sock in Dallas, but I left half the yarn here. I took some cream Austermann Barkarole to knit on the plane, trying to see what I could come up with in the way of a men’s scarf. I fell back on the Tunisian rib since I had neglected to bring a pattern book. It is a bit stiff on a 3mm, and it will take forever to knit the 475m I have in that stitch and I suspect that it will not be long enough if I try. This is one ball, knit out, 100 stitches, 14½”×3½”. That would give me a 5½ ft scarf in 38+ hours of the same stitch over and over.

Reducing the width to 75 stitches would give me the right length, but would not reduce the duration. What I would like is a slightly looser pattern, but not a basic k/p texture pattern. Any suggestions?

I could just move up to a 3.5mm needle.

I realized today that I finished my other sister’s socks without ever taking a picture. Damn.

Miscellany

1. I am too old to be chasing the Little Monster around the apartment.
2. The Half-Priced Books on Northwest Hwy in Dallas is worth the trip to Dallas.
3. Used book stores rarely have good knitting books. An entire book on duplicate stitch? I assume then that we are supposed to will the good ones to friends when we die?
4. Word Problem: The sweet twinkie, Sean, who was our flight attendant on the last leg of our trip (and admired my knitting while saying he had tried it, but didn’t have the patience for it) will be half my age no earlier than ten years from now. How old is he, assuming he is old enough to legally serve alcohol on an airplane?
5. Really, how does one flirt with a flight attendant?
6. Damn. I have to go to work tomorrow.
7. Having joined Ravelry, I realize once again that I can easily spend more time thinking about, reading about and writing about knitting than actually knitting.
8. How did my 16g stainless steel PA accidentally go through the airport metal detector undetected? I am now uncomfortable about what else can get through.

Ta ta.

Stopped snowing finally, still cold. Not much melting.

• I’ve been playing around with my list bullets.
• Still working on the online stash inventory.
• Added at right a link to my photo gallery, which for the most part duplicates the pictures on this blog.
• Added a Google sitemap behind the scenes.

And the Wordpress admin is no better under Safari than Camino.

Cold, light snow

This the third day in a row with some snow and it’s not melting. Last night’s snow was light and fine, but wet enough to stick to anything. Any everything was cold enough to hold on to it.

Knitting Content

The finished Tunisian rib socks

Yarn

Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Flames (#146)

Needles

Crystal Palace Bamboo 2.25mm dpn’s (US #1)

Pattern

my own, for better or worse; Dutch heel and round toe (modified) from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks; Tunisian rib from Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, p.159.

This is the first time I’ve used a Dutch heel in stockinette. It seems too wide and too long. In case you are wondering about the proportions, these are for my sister, who has short feet and high arches. We’ll see how these do.

Detail of the Tunisian rib, which has become my favorite rib stitch.

☃

History

Going through the old photos I never posted I found this from April 2007.

Yarn

elsebeth lavold Silky Wool, color 15 Pumpkin

Needles

Addi Turbo 3.50mm, 40cm circ; Inox straights in the same size

Pattern

my own, again, using two lace patterns from Barbara Walker’s second Treasury and a variant of my own.

Still snowing.

Hey, Canada! Thanks for sharing your weather!

Sorta.

So I have to log in to work tomorrow, and Monday and Tuesday.

Tuesday. Did you ever think you’d live to see the day?

And I don’t just mean the day His Abysmalness leaves office, and there were plenty of times I didn’t think I’d live to see that. Of course, there was always the possibility of a Cheney coup.

I live in New York, and never once did feel safer with the Chimp in the White House. Or in an elementary school in Florida.

But enough of that.

This is wonderful. This brings tears to my eyes.

I’m not writing an essay on it, but that this is going to happen fills me with hope. We as a liberal, thinking people might survive.

We will be watching the inauguration from the warmth of our living room, not from the cold Washington mall. I might have considered going if 1) I could have thought ahead enough to reserve a decent room and 2) we weren’t flying to Dallas Wednesday to celebrate my mom’s ~~th birthday.

Wunderbar! Flying out of La Guardia. I’ll be the one with his head buried in a bag of knitting.

After thirty years of shaving, I’ve got to hope this fills in:

And here’s the Princess of Ceilings in a rare moment of calm. You will think her sweet and delicate, but she moves too fast to photograph when she’s not.

Clear, unbelievably cold, and not as icy as predicted

At least it will be the last time.

I did not watch it, but unless he admitted that he stole at least one election, has been lying 85% of the time for the last eight years and pretty much considers his presidency one bad fraternity prank gone horribly wrong, then what would have been the point?

I’ve also automated the 69 things about me to give a random 69 items everytime the page loads. So I still only have 69 things in the list, but I can add to the list and it will never show more than 69.

It’s a good number.

Clear, cold and icy.

I have automated the reading list (see right). Further enhancements to come.