Still going...

God, am I glad tomorrow is Friday! A truer TGIF I never had. This week has been a bear and I'm exhausted. Wednesday I had a class that kept me at school until 6:30 and today I had BTSA so I didn't get home until after 6 pm. I've been realy tired and I can really use a couple of days to sleep in - and birthday weekends are just right for that, heaven knows!

Because of the fatigue and getting home later than usual, I haven't done any knitting to speak of. We had our Club Information Day at school on Wednesday, so I did some sock knitting just to show off what it was that the club was about. Happily, two boys were extremely interested in the proceedings and are really jazzed about the club. I love to see boys who are confident enough in themselves to take on knitting. As one of them told me, "I just want to try everything!" What a fantastic attitude, especially in an 8th grader!

So! Birthday weekend! Yes! About that... it's going to be a quiet one this year. AC and D and my mom and Dave and I were all going to go out for dinner on Saturday to celebrate AC's and my birthday together, but D found Sharks tickets on eBay for that evening so we're putting off the dinner for another week. That's OK with me since Dave will be taking me out just the two of us, instead. I think we're going to La Pinata, which has the best mole on the planet (or at least here in Fremont) so no complaints here!

On Sunday (my actual birthday) I may drive out to Tracy with Dave on a job he's got out there because there's a yarn shop we went to last summer that I'd like to get back to. I can't really imagine anything practical that would be much better than spending part of my birthday in a yarn store two days after payday. I mean, yeah, Hawaii would be nice, but not so practical. Ya gotta get your jollies where ya can.

Then again, if I'm still tired I may just hang at home with my knitting and some old taped episodes of Simon & Simon that Mom has been pulling off of the Sleuth channel for me. We don't get Sleuth and I used to love Simon & Simon so it's sort of been a thing for me the past few months. Last summer it was Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns, now it's this. Next summer, who knows?
Posted by GoddessKristin on 09/28/06 at 08:13 PM [link]

Guest Star!

Before I get to the guest star (who can she be?), I thought I would show you my socks in progress. These socks actually were my socks in progress when I went to see today's guest star on Sept 9 (yes, I'm pitifully behind. See: broken blog, depressed Hacker, need for digital camera).

However, these socks? Are now completed. Please imagine a second sock, eerily similar to the first sock. That would be what the picture would look like if I had a picture of the finished pair. It's not so much that Dave is working on his computer right now so I don't want to bug him about giving me a picture of the finished pair (although that is true) but honestly, I am too lazy to go get the camera and take a picture that I will have to wait several hours to pull from the camera. See how that works?

So, at long last, here are the pictures from the Yarn Harlot's visit to Los Altos several weeks ago.



Stephanie was hilarious - even funnier in person than in her writing, which I didn't think was possible.



She spoke for almost an hour and a half and it was like hearing the truth from the preacher's lips. Her tips for reacting to people who look at your stash and say, "That's a lot of yarn" was priceless.



She has a dry wit and a fantastic delivery that really works with her material.

We waited about 2 hours to have her sign our books (we were in Zone 5. If I'd known there would be zones I would have driven over much earlier). But it was 2 hours in a yarn shop and that meant knitting was possible and well as being surrounded by luscious yarns, so it wasn't a bad wait.

When it was finally our turn, I gave Stephanie a dictionary that translates knitting terms into different languages. It's called, appropriately enough "Knitting Languages" and it's by Margaret Heathman. YarnMarket.com describes it thusly:

"Knitting Languages by author Margaret Heathman contains knitting terms translated into English from Danish, French, Swedish, German, British, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, and Spanish. The book is divided by country and listed alphabetically making it simple to use. Revised and expanded, this book is an invaluable tool for knitters who love the culture, tradition and styles beyond their own borders."

It's a cool book, but not one I felt needed to go into my own knitting library. I can't see myself trying to knit from a pattern in another language. I have enough trouble just deciphering the English knitting instructions. However, Stephanie regaled her blog readers with a hilarious tale of knitting from a pattern in Finnish and a few weeks after I read it, I stumbed across this book at Article Pract in Oakland. I'd never seen it before and I knew she was coming to town so I bought it for her.



I don't look anything like my hottest in this pic, but it's better than the one we took without a flash, so it'll have to serve as documentary evidence and not a high fashion shoot. Here I am holding my sock and Stephanie is holding her sock. I actually got to hold her sock for a picture she took of me with the book I gave her (presumably for her own blog) but it was dark and I imagine I looked even worse than I do in my own picture, so I'm grateful she didn't post it.

Finally, here is Mom with the Harlot, doing the same chin tuck thing that makes us look like we have 9 chins. Gorgeous, isn't it?



Despite not getting home until 10 pm, the KnitWits crew had a great time. Here's hoping Stephanie returns to the Bay Area soon!

Special thanks go to my brother-in-law D who defied technology's evil snare and rescued these images from my mother's digital camera. You are the bomb, D!
Posted by GoddessKristin on 09/25/06 at 05:25 PM [link]

Wherein I Come Through With Long Promised Pix!

For once in my blogging life, dear reader (readers?) I promised to give you the second half of a picture series and HERE IT IS!!!!!!!

(I'm practically breaking my arm patting myself on the back here. This doesn't happen often. It would happen more often, I am certain, if I had my own digital camera. I'm just sayin'.)

So, I left you somewhat hanging yesterday with my teaser homespun photo. The yarn, naked, looked like this:

But careful application of cherry Kool Aid produced this:



It's not as soft as I would like, which is the fault both of the wool (cheap practice roving) and a slight felting that occured, I think, when I heated up the water in the microwave. It also pills like mad. But, as an experiment in dying, it's nothing like a complete failure, and it's my first handspun, handdyed yarn. I can imagine using it for a felted... something. Though I'd be a bit nervous about the Kool Aid rubbing all over the place because no matter how much rinsing I did, there was still a slight pink tinge to the rinse water.

There! That is TWO pictures!!! (Granted, one was from yesterday, but it is still TWO! TWO pictures! Ah! Ah! Ah! (yes, I aspire to be The Count from Sesame Street). Now I will shock you with a finished object!



Here is my finished Clapotis! I used 3 skeins of Cascade 220 and needed almost every drop of it. It was a worrisome effort, let me tell you. I was very nervous about running out of yarn. But I had a tiny bit left over and I do like the way it came out. The only thing is that the edges, where I dropped the stitches to, are wonky. I missed a direction somewhere, I guess, and the edges pull in a way that I don't like. It's like the base for the dropped stitch isn't solid - instead there appear to be two stitches pulling away from each other. I would be much happier if this wasn't the case. If you think you know what I did wrong, please contact me because I liked knitting this and would like to know what I should do the next time.

Also! There are works in progress! Knitting continues Chez Yarn Hacker. I am working on this:



It's a lovely afghan (aghan? aphgahn? aghahn? This is one of those words I cannot spell, no matter how hard I work). The yarn is a kit from KnitPicks and I lurve it. Just about everything they sell is in this kit, so I get to sample it all. Chunky wool, worsted hand-dyed, alpaca blends, mohair, cotton... you name it, it's here. It's a gorgeous kit that I'm enjoying working. The pattern is straight forward and I've gotten the hang of it. It isn't quite mindless knitting for me, though it would be for someone more advanced than I am, but I love it nonetheless.

More pictures in the next post! Honest! I have them, but I'm saving them. Maybe there will be a guest star! You will only know if you tune in to the next exciting (?) installment!

Have a good weekend!

Posted by GoddessKristin on 09/22/06 at 04:49 PM [link]

Why I need a digital camera

I know I promised a superhuman effort to show you pictures today. There was, in fact, a superhuman effort. An effort. I remembered to take the pictures, which was the extent of my effort. Clap for me.

However, you can't see those pictures until later. That's where the effort ends, abruptly and through no fault of my own (honest!). See, we had our windows replaced. How can having the windows replaced lead to me not being able to show you the pictures? Well, when the guys come to replace your windows, they need three feet of room in front of every window. (This is what they told me. I wasn't actually here at any time during window replacement. I was at work. I went to work in the morning and our house had crappy aluminum single paned windows and then I returned from work in the afternoon and we had gorgeous white-framed, quiet dual-paned windows. It was like the Window Elves came! I love the Window Elves! I only wish that, when they came, they didn't want thousands of dollars but they did a lovely job and I adore the windows and I never had to watch the Elves work, which is good because watching any contractors, Elven or otherwise, makes me nervous, so yay, Window Elves!)

ANYWAY.

The required three feet of space meant that Dave's office had to be dismantled because his computer is right in front of the window. Dave owns the digital camera, which he needs for work. The card reader for the camera is attached to his computer. When I want a digital picture I have to go through his briefcase, get the camera, use the camera, boot his computer (if he's not using it. If he is using it - like say, for work - I have to wait until he's all done which could happen at 3 am. Honest to God), pull the pictures off his camera, put them on our shared drive, go to my computer and move the pictures onto the website. Then I can post a blog entry about the pictures.

This, as you can imagine, falls apart completely when Dave's computer isn't put together.

It also falls apart in any number of spectactular ways. It causes problems, as I mentioned, when Dave's working on his computer. You can't just rush in and demand that a man who is working to put food on the table stop whatever he's doing and download the picture you just took of a k2tog that looks wonky. It's not the right thing to do. The whole plan also falls down dead the minute that Dave takes the camera to a job site. Furthermore, it doesn't go down at all well when I forget to put the SD card back in the digital camera and Dave takes the camera to a job site several hours away from home and - whoops! - can't take a picture that he needs (I mention again) FOR HIS JOB.

No that doesn't go down well at all.

Thus, clearly, I need my own camera. I think it's the obvious solution. And oh! Whaddaya know? Next Sunday's my birthday.

Imagine that.

(In an effort to not seem completely obvious, I will now change the subject.)

I do have OLD pictures, which you have not seen yet, which makes them new to you. That's ok with you right? I mean, if you want NEW new pictures... well, you wouldn't know the difference if I hadn't just told you right?

I should shut up now.

Here is some nifty spinning I did a while back. It was practice spinning and also practice dying, as you might be able to discern from the bowl and packets of Kool-Aid on the counter. I have an appalling amount of Kool-Aid stashed away now, because it went on sale and I went cuckoo-bananas buying it. I spun several skeins averaging about 140 yards each (Lord do I need a yarn meter... oooooh! Christmas list!). I dyed some of the practice spinning apple green, and some cherry red and it all turned out fairly well.

But, in true cliffhanger style, I'm going to wait to show you the pictures until tomorrow. You expected that, right?

Posted by GoddessKristin on 09/21/06 at 06:44 PM [link]

Ahoy! (Mateys and otherwise...)

Despite the fact that today is Talk Like a Pirate Day and not Write Like a Pirate Day (pirates do not participate in the literary arts, you see), it be overwhelmingly tempting to indulge me inner scurvy dog and scribe all of today's entry in Pirate Speak. However, I be quickly realizin' that I am not the best pirate talker (or writer) on these open seas and I may be in for more than this solid old vessel can handle.

I mean, look at me. I'm an English teacher. Using the present subjunctive form of the verb "to be" with the pronoun "I" is foreign to me.

I be a sorry excuse for a pirate.

Regardless, hi! It's been a while, no? Yes! Yes, it has. I blame technology. I do that because it is technology's fault. You would blame it too if you knew the tortured route it took to get to the point where I could post a new entry. The only reason I'm still here is the superhuman efforts of Dave, who went out and found all the old entries, rebuilt them and then spent whole days figuring out the inner workings of Greymatter so that new entries could be added. This sucker was broken my friends. Busted. Kaput. Deader 'n a plucked parrot in a stew pot (something a desperate pirate might eat, no?)

Then, because it turns out nothing works (nothing, I'm telling you. The only reason that things appear to work is that they are biding their time so that they up and die at the worst possible moment) our internet router at home has breathed it's last. Of course it did. Just when I could post a new entry? No I couldn't! Psych!

Our router is a junior high school student, just messing with our minds, it seems.

Also, it is messing with my ability to obtain and print color pictures for a lesson at school. This is where it pays to be flexible. Actually, correction: this is where it is required that one be flexible. The best laid plans often go horribly wrong, and this wasn't even the best laid plan. I sort of procrastinated. I got what I deserved at 6:44 this morning when I couldn't access Google to find color pictures of the Appalacian Mountains and the 8 other pictures I wanted to show my kids in geography this afternoon. We will imagine for today and I will bring pictures tomorrow.

And I will act as if that was my plan all along. See? Flexible.

Once again I cannot show you my current projects (blame technology freely. It's good for the soul) but I will make my equivilent of a superhuman effort to do so tomorrow. Imagine some socks - there have been socks. Imagine a Clapotis - there has been one of those too. There have been other things too. Employ your imagination at will - probably you can imagine better stuff than I've been knitting.

Also! I went to see The Yarn Harlot when she was in Los Altos. There are pictures trapped in my mother's digital camera. Probably we will never figure out how to retrieve them.

You know who to blame, right?
Posted by GoddessKristin on 09/19/06 at 08:11 AM [link]

Been a long lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time (9/09)

Those who still check in will know that it's been a long time since I've updated. Some of that was because Greymatter got hosed a few months ago and all of my entries disappeared. This was disheartening, as you can probably imagine, and I was about ready to give up on the site. I realized that much of my writing was done for the benefit of my Dad, who, though I was really close to him, I usually didn't feel really comfortable telling what was in my heart. Writing it was so much easier. I'm not big on talking to people in any deep way anyhow - I hate the telephone, for example. So after he died, who was I writing for? I'm not a diary keeper, by nature, even though I always wish I was.

So I was about ready to drop the whole thing. But Dave, patient Dave, went online and found the Google cached versions of all the entries and then rebuilt the archives. I'm telling you, he's a keeper (but he's mine). Still, I spent the summer not really wanting to write. In the first place I don't turn my computer on very often in the summer since 1) it gets too hot upstairs and 2)I have little reason to need the computer. So I forget. Blog? What blog?

In the second place, I had some disappointing news over the summer. Dave and I have been trying for Baby #1 for a while now and we got pregnant in early June. Unfortunately I miscarried and, well, not being much of a talker, I didn't feel like writing about it until now. I'm still not sure I do want to write about it. It felt like such a waste of time, that pregnancy. I was angry - at myself for hoping, and at my HMO for not finding out sooner. I lost the pregnancy at the beginning of my 6th week and nobody figured it out until three weeks later. I spent those three weeks completely terrified because I had no symptoms of pregnancy and had had bleeding for almost 2 weeks. Once again, thanks Kaiser!

The whole thing, while not traumatic (the miscarriage wasn't painful in a physical way and I needed no medical interventions), has affected me in subtle ways. I cannot bring myself to watch "A Baby Story" anymore, a show I once loved. I want to knit baby socks from my leftover sock yarn, but never start them. This past Wednesday, when our amniocentisis was scheduled, I was a depressed mess most of the day. Things like that.

We're still trying, still hoping. As my 35th birthday edges closer I worry a little more, clasp my hands a little tighter when I think, "Please let it happen and stick this time". I don't think it's prayer exactly. My faith, such as it was, has taken a beating over the last 18 months and I have a hard time believing anyone's listening. It's more like I'm willing my body to listen. "You! Ovaries! Get cranking! And you, you stupid womb... nurture!!" But it hasn't worked so far.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 09/17/06 at 11:00 PM [link]

Notice of Still Aliveness

Hi all! I am *not* dead, and this is still a live blog. We're having some major technical issues at the moment and Dave's working like mad to fix them. Check back soon! There has been knitting!
Posted by GoddessKristin on 09/17/06 at 10:12 PM [link]