Maplewing!

I have managed to cast on 600 stitches, and knit across the first row. I counted, I double counted, I sectioned off bits so I’d only have to count smaller amounts, and still, as I ended the row, I was one stitch short. So I just increased in a stitch to pick it up.

Not much to see yet,

The shawl in progress is thinking that if it lays next to the photo of the completed shawl, it’ll get done faster, or better, or something.

I used to put my organic chemistry book under my pillow. And I got an A in that class, so maybe this proximity thing works.

the other M thing

Yee gads, if you’ve gone through this thing and are out the other side, whole and sane, please let me know. It gets better, yes?

I think 27 of the 34 symptoms hit me in one week. It’s #3 making me most crazy (and rather exhausted) lately… on a week, off a week or week and a half, on a week, off a week, on a week…

I finished this sometime in 2006, pre-blog…

The Sebring never really got worn, because I don’t have the right bra for it. Straps show on the outside when I wear a regular bra, straps show on the inside with a racerback, nothing really worked.

Then, tonight, the first thing I saw when I walked into one of those bath and bed stores caused an AHA! moment!

See, (ignore the black strap, I had on a black wool shirt all day…)

Now this look might be something some younger women can wear with aplomb. But not me.

But now, because of some little bit of plastic,

It works!

If you WANT your bustline to look larger, don’t loosen the straps too much, but if you don’t, then loosen them!

I haven’t a clue anymore what yarn this is. It’s a 100% cotton sport/light dk, and I’m thinking it was German. If I remember what it is, I’ll put it on my ravelry page for this. What I do know, though, is that I should probably have knitted a smaller size to have some negative ease. Or done some waistline shaping.

But at least I can wear it now without feeling like I’m from some backwater holler.

be careful what you hear in those stores

So I went into this store looking for a fingernail scrub brush. It’s gardening and bare foot season, and I hate getting into bed with dirty feet. Of course one has to walk all around the store through the kitchen stuff before getting to the end and the bath stuff. Which means a few other items (all small!) followed me home.

But near there? Those massage chairs?

Let me tell you… After a day of a lunch time workout and an evening tae kwon do class (that I taught, though I haven’t been training), my back was pretty tight. All around the store, I’d stop and look at something, but really what I was doing was stretching.

And then I saw the chair. And sat in it. And turned it on. And groaned in ecstasy.

Thankfully this is Augusta and I think I was the only customer in the entire store. But a store worker snickered as he went by, “like that, do you?”. So I put him to work, while I remained seated. “Hey, see those nail brushes… they’re wooden, what are people thinking? wood and water? It rots. Got any in plastic?” But no. So I returned home with wooden brushes that will mildew and rot long before a plastic one’s bristles would give out.

But at least my feet will be clean when I get into bed.

it’s not really nearly summer

45 and rainy all day. Which is why I wore a wool shirt. And was totally cozy and comfortable.

I did what the pattern said, and when it came time to sew the shoulders together, the fronts were narrower than the back. I triple checked, and I had the correct number of stitches on each.

See,

The photo on the pattern shows the button band, which is picked up and knit, as wider at the neck/shoulder than down the middle,

If you look closely, it looks like there’s a bit of the twisted rib that angles away from the main neckline and back towards the neck.

I figure these are my options:

1. Pick up and knit a wicked wide button band, then sew it at the top shoulder, and do a single crochet trim all around. I don’t like this one so much.
2. Pick up stitches at the top, and knit in short rows to take up the space, and gradually spread out and then pick up the rest. This one seems like work. I’ve done short rows, but not quite like this.
3. And from looking very closely at the photo, I have option 3. Pick up and knit a small triangle of twisted rib, going the other direction from the neckline, and then somehow graft it to the shoulder. And then pick up from one side all the way around. The pattern says to go from center back down one side, and then center back down the other. The somehow is a little nerve-racking, but I think this is the option I’ll go with.

   And in rib versus stockinette as per the pattern.

more maine morning mitts

Love, love, love these maine morning mitts. Maybe not this particular pair, but I love the pattern, especially in this yarn.

Yet another pair in Friendz Blendz from Friends Folly Farm bargain bin skeins. There wasn’t quite enough of the purple (the main color on one mitt, half the other), so I finished it off in a blue. Hard to capture those two colors with this camera (and with the old one too). These are such a quick knit, nearly mindless, forgiving of errors (e.g., I often only do one row w/out increases on the gusset versus two; not for any particular reason, mostly because I’m doing the mindless thing), and so incredibly comfy on.

I’m thinking I’ll knit up a passel of them and they can be xmas gifts on hand.

frost warning!

Last night, so the seedlings came inside. All decorated with crabapple blossoms.

Basil too, and you know that’s wicked sensitive to frost.

(Conan, don’t read those last “sentences” too closely!)

flickr

Is really starting to piss me off. It takes FOREVER to load up photos, and then often there are three copies of each. Something’s wrong, I know, and I resent that I have to spend time doing research to find out what in an attempt to fix it. But, here’s hoping it’s fixable. I’m suspicious of teenager activities and what may have come with some of those… but who knows. Nobody else here is noticing any connection / speed issues.

Yesterday I had to fill out a survey at the request of NatureServe, and one of the questions was which animal phyla do you collect data on. There was this big long list. You can see such a list (with sketches!) here. Mostly it was a bunch of different types of worms, many of them solely marine creatures: flat worms, ribbon worms, round worms, horsehair worms, tongue worms, velvet worms, peanut worms, vent worms, pen1s worms, beard worms; several things that look just like rotifers; and tardigrades get their own phylum too. And something that has its mouth and anus inside of its tentacles, and another that has its mouth and anus outside of its tentacles.

Who knew??

What phyla does Maine track? Molluscs (mussels and snails), arthropods (insects, crustaceans), and chordates (tunicates and vertebrates).

I was a little depressed that we are more closely related to a tunicate than a rotifer is to a gastrotrich or any of those different types of marine worms.

So this morning I was contemplating this: If I was a marine worm, would I look out of my marine environment to the land and think, geesh, all those things living up there sure look a lot alike.

I posed this question at lunch, and Janet (our snow pile model) said, if you were a marine worm, you wouldn’t have any eyes.

OK OK, would I sense that “all y’all look just alike”.

She says that given that humans of different races have difficulty distinguishing features of other races, probably.

Clearly I am ready for a long weekend. Maybe I’ll have time to catch up on some blog reading, in knit blogs that actually talk about knitting! And maybe I’ll finish that sweater!

snow pile status

It’s still there. It’s still big.

That’s Janet on the left, and our intern Dan on the right.

This pile is bigger than last year’s smaller pile, but since that smaller pile is nearly gone now, maybe this one will melt sometime long before the winter arrives.

I didn’t get much sewing done (which is where I’m at, sew up the sides and sleeves and then knit bands along each front side).

But I did get some buttons!

I’ll use the ones on the left, but I’m wondering if there’s a way to easily change them out for the skulls. For when I’m, um, hormonal. Maybe they’d be an early warning system for people, “Danger Danger Will Robinson“.

Or maybe I should plant a poison garden. (Check out those photos, this woman has a wicked, and wicked funny, sense of humor)

Flickr…

Anybody else been finding it extremely slow lately?

The Hunt for the Comet Darner!

These are a type of dragonfly, that according to a wildlife biologist I know are very, very difficult to catch. Which makes this story all the more exciting. For us bug geeks anyhow. And maybe these young men have a new perspective on the world around them now.

Weird bug lady

Have you seen her work? Recently a plush tardigrade was shown on the craftzine blog. But check out her flickr account, whoa!