Everybody Loves Saturday Night

I'm still feeling a little

I'm still feeling a little depleted on the ol' writing front, but a good walk in the park on a gorgeous day like today should help.

I finished Michael's socks but haven't taken a picture, which will now require me to have the foresight to bring my camera with me the next time I go over to his place, remember to ask him to put the socks on, and then remember that I have the camera.  This may be too much for me to do.  Friends, an idle mind...for a while I was used to the whole not working thing, enjoying it even, secure in my finances enough to say, "hey, a job will happen when it happens."  The past couple days I've been itching to get to work at something.  To be, you know, busy.  To be able to answer the phone and say, "Hey, I can't talk right now, I've got a bajillion things to do."  Or better yet, "I'll call you back when I'm out of my meeting."  Better still: "Here's my expense report for MDS&W."*

Almost immediately after finishing Michael's socks, I started up not one, but two pairs for myself:

On the left, Knit Picks Sock Garden in Pansy (click for solo shot ).  Isn't the striping great?  I've got 6.25 stitches per inch on size 3 needles, so I'm working on 52 stitches.  Doin' 'em toe-up because originally I wanted another pair of knee-highs, but I think I'm going to stop a few inches short of that just so I can get them done.  This yarn, though...even softer than the Landscape yarn I used for Michael's socks.  The Sock Garden yarn is fantastically soft.  I do have one problem with both of them, however: just a few too many flaws in the yarn, whether it's knots or slubbies where there ought not to be slubbies.  For this price, however, I am willing to (almost) overlook these impurities of yarn.

On the right, may I present the Return to Koigu.  I haven't worked with Koigu PPPM since I finished the Charlotte Web shawl (which, OK, still doesn't have the crochet trim and hence may not actually be considered finished), and it's been even longer since I used Koigu for socks.  I'm using Anne Woodubry's lace sock pattern from Interweave Knits Summer 2003, on size 2 needles, with color P610.  The heel part is a little bigger than I need, but the leg part stretches out nicely, as you can see from this close up.  It's my first lace sock.  I do believe I'm charmed by it. Only a few more pattern repeats until I can decrease for the toe.

It's funny...both Jackie and I are working on Lisette in fits and starts, but somehow we never work on them at the same time.  I put mine down, she picks hers up.  And just as she puts hers away, I bring mine back out again.  It's very exciting at this point, because I've reached the armhole shaping!

This yarn refuses to be photographed properly.

And I'm restless with the knitting, too.  I keep telling myself that I can't start new projects until I free up a row counter.  Or find one--I'm sure there's a free one somewhere, buried in the stash.

* Yeah...I can't make it this year.  Two reasons: 1) I've got no right to be spending money on extra trips when I've got no job and I already need to fly to Mpls. in June (getting there is no problem, but once I'm there I can't possibly be expected to not spend money), and 2) it's Mother's Day weekend and it would be nice to stay in NYC for that.

Hey Hey

I'm around...just taking a little break from writing and working on other blog features.  As in, I'm going to take advantage of this crappy crappy day on which I don't have to be anywhere to finally get to organizing my knitting photos into album form.  Just as soon as I've had my coffee and finished the crossword puzzle.  And run some other more pressing errands.  But I'll get to it.

Thirty-four

(Thanks for the image, Col!  I hope you're feeling better!)

Oooh, and wait til you see all the groovy cards I've been getting in the mail!

34 feels weird.

Though maybe I'm just hungry.

I got big plans for today: finishing the Boy Socks.  (Michael's b-day is exactly six months away from mine, which means it's his half-birthday today, or as we used to call it, his "Un-Birthday," and I think that's worthy of a present, don't you?  Shhhhhh, though.  It's a secret.)

((Unless he's reading this now.))

(((I suck at keeping secrets.)))

((((Actually, that's not true.  I've got a couple really big secrets that I'm keeping, that I have been keeping for months and months, and you'll never get me to talk.  Never!))))

(((It helps that I've got other people keeping the same secret.)))

((Nope, this one's not about Michael.))

(If I keep these asides up, I'll never get to those socks.)

Bestest Birthday Ever

And I'm still not done!

In the Midwest, I am known as a punctual person.  Annoyingly so, in fact.  I would often arrive places 5-15 minutes early and then just sit in the car in order to pretend that I was on time.  I don't have that option in New York, where transportation can be so unpredictable.  In my Midwest way, I started out by compensating for unpredictability by leaving my apartment with a 15-20 minute cushion.  True, this meant I could arrive 20 minutes early for something, but it also meant I would be right on time should something happen with the subway.  What I've learned is that very few people here do that, and I have grown tired of waiting around for 20-25 minutes because everyone else lives comfortably without the 20-minute cushion, and the general understanding is that 15 minutes late is "running behind."  I can live with that.  It should take a lot of pressure off, but there are times when it doesn't.

Like Thursday night.  I left my apartment exactly when I should have, had I been wearing sensible shoes and caught the L train in the station.  As it happened, I couldn't walk 10 feet in my shoes without the heel strap sliding off, and these shoes were not meant to be mules, so I had to stop, fix the strap, continue, stop, fix the strap, continue...and I just missed the L train pulling out of the station, and had to wait  7 minutes for the next one.  Then I missed the A train (doooo, do do do doo dooooo) by seconds--and by that time it was already a little past 6.

Let's not forget that it was St. Patrick's Day, and once off the subway I had to negotiate my way through scores of people a couple lime jello shots away from a stomach pumping. So I was aobut 10 minutes late meeting Michael at the corner of 46th & 8th.  And I was a little stressed about that, because I could've left my apartment later, I could've opted for a car service instead, I could've could've could've...but no matter.  Michael looked amazing in a black suit and tie, so I let the stress melt off me.

We walked along 46th St., where I mentioned the shoes impeding my otherwise swift pace, and he let something slip about the theater being only a block and a half away...and I chortled because I had been right about the dinner and a show thing.

We walked into Joe Allen's, and almost immediately I spotted Michael's mom sitting at a table (I knew she had played an important role in planning this night)...and another woman sitting with her back to me.  But I knew that back-of-the-head anywhere.

Let me back up a bit.  Most of my conversations with my mom over the past month have been of the "Michael is so wonderful" variety (no surprise there, right?) and I had expressed a wish that she could come out here to meet him before we head to Minneapolis for my brother's wedding.  She said that if she could swing it, she might be able to make it in early April.  So I told Michael this.  And at one point a few weeks ago, he asked if I had heard anything more about whether she could make it within the context of a conversation about my birthday, so I started to wonder whether that's what he and his mom were planning.  And then I asked my mom in an email conversation if she'd been able to manage a trip out here, and she pointedly ignored the question.  So that's why I had, in the back of my mind, the idea that she might show up unexpectedly.  Michael had successfully managed to make me think otherwise, but when I saw my mom sitting with his mom at Joe Allen's, I was surprised--but not overly shocked.  And I chortled again because at this point I was two for two.

Dinner was fabulous, and the four of us were getting along splendidly--the least stressful "Meeting of the Moms" ever, which also was not much of a surprise.

The real surprise of the night was the show.  I really had no idea where we were going, and even during dinner no one would tell me (which led to a funny moment when the waiter came by and asked what we were going to see and I informed him, "They can't tell you" and he cackled his delight at the situation).  Our moms walked on ahead of us, so it wasn't until I saw them in line outside the Golden Theater, under the big marquee for Avenue Q that I knew what we were seeing, and I could not contain myself.  I'd been dying to see that musical since it started Off-Broadway, and occasionally I kicked myself for not jumping at the chance to see it for Off-Broadway ticket prices.

For those who don't know, Avenue Q is an irreverant, bawdy show wherein the majority of characters are puppets who tackle subjects like racism, homosexuality, homelessness, relationships, unemployment and porn.  The songs invoke the early days of Sesame Street, in the most delicious way, but it's more than that--the music and lyrics are incredibly original, clever, and memorable, and that's saying something these days--and for that I do think the show deserved its Best Musical Tony.  Read reviews here.

We had perfect seats, too--a few rows in on the first balcony, which I actually prefer sometimes to orchestra seats because it doesn't matter if someone tall sits in front of me (and someone tall always sits in front of me).  I'm still not quite able to rid my mind of the image of puppets having sex (and I mean really going at it), I'm still laughing at the line, "It sucks to be broke and unemployed and turning 33," and I would go see the show again in a heartbeat.  Can't remember the last musical I thought that about.

As if the night weren't perfect enough, we headed back to Michael's place for cake and champagne, and we were joined there by Colleen!  Long-time readers of this blog know that Col and I go way, way (way) back, and so she and my mom go way way back as well, and it always makes me happy when the three of us can get together when my mom is in town.  So how could I ask for anything more?

My mom stayed until Sunday morning, which meant she joined me for dinner with the Drafty Ladies on Friday.  They took me to a fantastic place called Vatan--a vegetarian Indian restaurant with gorgeous decor and even better food.  I didn't even realize this until Cari mentioned it the next day--it was the first time we got together as a group for something that didn't involve knitting.  May there be many more occasions like that, because it was such a fun time (yay, there's more than knitting that keeps us friends!).  I was also presented with an overly generous gift certificate to Seaport Yarn, and this perfect stitch marker:

(sooooo...the knitting found a way in there somehow.)

Thank you, thank you, Mindy, Jackie, Iris, and Cari!  I adore you all more than I can say.

The Internet is for Porn

With that, a few of you will know what show I saw last night.  And it was even better than I thought it would be.

Oh, and my mom is here.

F'real.

I'll have to give you the scoop later.

But it was a perfect night.

Well...

We tried.  And we're gonna try again next week some time.  I'm not sure what happened; all I know is that Yahoo Chat was not behaving the way a chat room ought to behave.  The first time I accessed the room, I saw Mindy there, but when I said "Hello," there was no response.  I thought maybe Firefox wasn't compatible with Yahoo Chat or something, so I logged off and then logged into Messenger to get to the chat room that way.  And there was Jenn!  So we chatted away for a few minutes, before wondering where the hell everyone else was.  Then I thought, "Maybe Messenger and net browsers don't work together?"  So I logged in through Explorer, and there was Brainylady!   And from the other coast, Jessica!  I told Jenn where to go and the four of us had a great time, but I kept looking over at the list of chatters--Mindy was still listed as being there, and I recognized Jackie's name, and there were a couple other people whose handles I didn't recognize, and I couldn't figure out why they weren't writing--or if they were writing, why I couldn't see it.  I had this weird sense that everyone on the list that I couldn't see was having their own party, and it was very Sliding Doors.  Had I just logged on a different way...

And then I got booted out of the chatroom.  I was able to come back in, but a few minutes later, Jessica's browser crashed and she couldn't get back.  That is to say, she followed the links to the chat room, but the chat room was no longer on the list.  I'm still puzzling over that one.  And then Alison got booted out and couldn't get back in.  Which left just the two birthday girls, sad and alone and with too much Neapolitan ice cream cake.  And we fought over the strawberry, so the party ended early.

So.  My gratitude and apologies to everyone who tried to make it but couldn't.  We are going to do this again; Jenn's checking out the AOL chat rooms.  Of course, if anyone has a better idea, I am all ears.  Eyes.  Whatever.  Because the killer thing?  Chatting with other knitters is kinda addictive.

So today should prove to be interesting.  Michael has arranged something at some place featuring some guest, and all I know is that I am to be "dressed for dinner" and to be at the southwest corner of 8th Avenue and 46th St. no earlier than 6:00 PM.

Yesterday I went shopping for something nice to wear, since he's seen me in all my sorta-nice but still casual clothing.  I found a really pretty silk skirt that I can pair with a shirt I already have that--oh!--just happens to match the Giotto scarf I just finished.  And some killer shoes. Not painful-killer, like the fabulous Christian Lacroix fabric-covered shoes with little rosettes on the toe and the 5" heel that I swear I almost bought because I was at Filene's and they were under $100, but then I walked in them, or tried to, and my feet are still complaining about that, but oh!  they were beautiful beautiful shoes!  Nope, the shoes I got are relatively comfortable, but still look killer.

He's been planning this for weeks--which is something, since we've been together for just a little over a month (!).  And I wouldn't say he's been dropping hints about what we're doing or where we're going, but he's been talking it up quite a bit, so that at one point last week I had to tell him to stop, because I was getting ideas about what it might be, and I didn't want to be wrong.  Or disappointed.  It's not that I wouldn't like what he's planned--the boy's proved himself to have fantastic ideas--but he's got me so twisted around on this that I'm half-expecting my mother to join us for dinner, having been flown out here at his expense.  Or, you know, he's been talking about how clean the apartment is because of this "special guest," that I could very well be greeted at the door by a rabbi with a chuppah. And my mother.  Or, as Col suggested, there could be tickets to Tokyo involved (to which Rachael hilariously added, "Tokyo, where you'll get married and find a child to adopt."  That, indeed, would be a surprise).

To anyone living in New York, however, the time and place suggest one very plausible possibility, and I can't help but risk being wrong on this.  I'm just sayin', the corner of 8th and 46th?  At 6:00 PM?  The right time and place for dinner and a show.

Unless, of course, the meeting place is a ruse.  I wouldn't put it past him.  He's a sneaky one, that Michael.  He's also incredibly romantic and makes me laugh more than anyone else I've ever dated (including the guy who gets paid to be funny).  This is love, this is.

Gushing over.  The thing is, it's not my birthday until Tuesday!  But then tomorrow, the Drafty Table ladies are taking me out for dinner.  I feel very special and very appreciated, and I'm just in love with everyone right now.

OK, now the gushing's over.  I did knock out a Diakeito ribbon yarn kerchief the other day.  There must be a pattern around somewhere, but I was too lazy to look, so I made it up as I went, not that it was hard to figure out how to make a garter stitch triangle.

Yarn: Diakeito Diamaterie, #611--only one skein!
Needles: US 6s (the yarn band says to use 10s, but I wanted a denser fabric)
Gauge: roughly 4.5 sts/inch in garter

Pattern (worked in garter stitch):

CO 2 sts using cable cast on.  Knit in the front and back of first stitch, knit to end.  Repeat every row until there are 32 stitches on the needle.

Knit one row even.
On next row, knit in the front and back of both end stitches, so that you're making two increases in one row.

[Why did I switch from every row to every other row?  I wanted a less gradual slant of the triangle to begin with, but then I was afraid that it would get too wide relative to the length, so I slowed it down.]

Repeat these two rows until there are 76 stitches on the needle.  Bind off.

Crochet single chain ties on either end.  Voila!

This hardly took any time at all, and the yarn was OK to work with.  Nothing spectacular, certainly not worth the $17, but still, fairly decent.  The finished product is very light and soft.  As I have two more balls of this yarn, I'm going to experiment with another kind of kerchief--this one more like that easy shawl pattern with yarn over increases, and then a lacy crochet trim.  Fun, fun!

Yes, we're going to a party, party

Jenn and I will be entertaining guests in the Knitter's Birthday Party Lair chat room on Yahoo.  7:30 PM ET til whenever!

Directions:  go to http://chat.yahoo.com.  Click on "Hobbies & Crafts."  Then click on the "User Rooms" link on the upper right hand side of the screen.  The chat room is listed somewhere in the middle.

Shockingly Simple Super Skinny Scarf

I've had this tangled, wadded up ball of Colinette Giotto in my stash for just about a year now.  I got it before I got my swift, and it proved far too annoying to wind up.  I entertained thoughts about displaying the mass of ribbon yarn as an art project, but then Jon worked up a really pretty, really easy scarf using just one skein of Giotto, and that seemed like a better and more functional idea.

It took two hours to untangle and wind up the yarn.  Fortunately, I had VH1 Classic's "The Alternative" to keep me motivated (sidenote: VH1 Classic also shows reruns of "Yo! MTV Raps," which delights me in ways I can't quite express).  When I started casting on to follow Jon's pattern, I realized that I wanted a lacier scarf, so I substituted a simple lace pattern found in Barbara Walker's Treasury Vol. 1.

Yarn: Colinette Giotto (lost band--I have no idea what colorway this is)
Needles: US 10.5s
Gauge: Irrelevant

Cast on 210 stitches.

Row 1: K1, *yo, K2tog*, end K1

Repeat first row for a total of 12 rows.  Bind off.

Blocked, the width of the scarf is approximately 4.5", but there's enough yarn left over to do one more row before binding off.  If you want a wider scarf, cast on fewer stitches.  Jon used 180, which would've been plenty long enough, but I opted for a super long scarf.  So long I need to block it in parts:

I thought I needed something more complicated to break the stockinette monotony, but Marcel's Sweater is giving me a little difficulty right now, probably because I put it down before completing the third different pattern repeat called for in the sleeve, and totally lost my place.  I knew what row I was on, but I had increased for the sleeve and couldn't figure out how to work the increases into the pattern.  So I took it off the needles and measured what I had, and lo!  It's bigger than it needs to be.  So that takes care of that.

In the meantime, this scarf--which took me four hours to knit up, and I know this because I kept track, just to satisfy my own curiosity--made me realize that I don't need complication, I need quick, easy, down 'n' dirty projects.  So what I've got in mind next is to work up some Diakeito ribbon yarn (I'm working with ribbon.  Spring must be coming) in a little head kerchief.  Huzzah!

Join us!

When: Wednesday, March 16, 7:30 PM (that's Eastern Standard Time, y'all)

Where: Yahoo! Chat room (more info to follow)

Why: Jenn and I are celebrating our birthdays together with a virtual party to which you're all invited!  You don't have to bring anything--you don't even have to be dressed!  You will, however, need a Yahoo ID, but those are free.  We spare nothing for our guests.

I hope you can pop on over to say hey.

~~~~~

Guess how long it's been since I got out of bed before 9:00 AM.

~~~~~

Knitting, knitting...well, I did manage to do everything on my To Do list last week, including start the second Boy Sock.  I've got about three inches done on that so far.  I made very little progress on other projects, like Dolman Updated and Lisette and Marcel's Sweater. 

It was a fairly busy weekend, but so totally enjoyable.  Colleen and I bummed around the Bedford Ave. area of Williamsburg, which is the part of Williamsburg that everyone thinks of when I tell them that I live in Williamsburg, but I happen to live a few subway stops east, in a fairly un-Williamsburg kind of area (although that happens to be changing fairly quickly).  Williamsburg's time as Artist Central has really passed, but for quite a time that's what it was known as, and that was pretty cool (though I didn't live here then--I'm just imagining).  Then, as will happen, the artist hangers-on and wannabes, those who subscribe to a certain poseurish chic for whom The Scene is important, moved in.  Williamsburg became less known for its artists in residence than for its hipster quotient.  A while back, The Onion ran a story with the headline " 37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster," with a description of the disaster as something like "a twisted mass of plastic black-rimmed glasses and ironic Girl Scout t-shirts."  That, my friends, is Williamsburg.  Although now the Weezer-inspired nerdy chic has given way to what I call the Great Unwashed chic.  You wear nothing if it's not from a thrift store, except you're not looking for quality cheap clothing, you're looking for the rattiest pair of olive green cordoroys you can find.  Match them with something that doesn't match.  Girls: it's still cool to wear dirty jeans under skirts that look like you took curtains or a tablecloth and sewed it into a tube. Neither wash nor comb your hair for days, and for extra effect, keep it smushed under a trucker hat (yes, there are still guys wearing trucker hats in this neighborhood) until you have to go outside.  Polyester has kitsch value and will help you add your own unique odor to the mix.

And I'm telling you, it was as though everyone in the Bedford Ave. area woke up on Saturday and decided to live up to the stereotype.  It was hilariously extra Williamsburgy that day.  We did find quite a few really awesome shops, though--everything way out of my price range, but it was nice to just walk around and window shop.  And then Michael joined us for dinner at SEA, after which Colleen and I regaled him with our stories from camp.  It makes me really happy that the two of them get along so well.

It's quiet in here. Too quiet.

I was gonna post something like, "Where'd everybody go?"  but then I realized that Bloglines isn't showing my site as having updated since Monday.  Then again, there doesn't seem to be a severe drop in daily hits.  So either I've become incredibly boring, or you've become incredibly busy.  Let's say the latter, shall we?

Someone asked about the pattern to the Ma Vie en Rose sweater.  There isn't one, really.  I mushed two patterns together and made it up from there.  I think that's what led to the neck not being what I wanted--I followed the instructions for the Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk Rio instead of figuring out what I needed to do for my yarn.  I'm thinking I could use an extra two inches of cowl.  Wait, "cowl" doesn't seem right.  What the hell do I call that off-the-shoulder thing, anyway?  Just off-the-shoulder turtleneck?  There's gotta be a better way to refer to it.

I learned last night that the instructions for the front pieces of Dolman Updated are incorrect (for correction, click here.  This would be after I finished the front left piece.  I suppose I don't have much to rip out, but it's the principle of the matter. 

I noticed the corrections because last night I decided to try out a sleeve for Marcel's Sweater, and as you'll see when you click on the corrections page, Marcel's Sweater is the first to have corrections.  Fortunately this was something I spotted right away--the pattern chart key is obviously wrong in the magazine.

Why start yet another project?  I was itching to try out Knit Pick's Merino Wool, for starters.  I was also jonesing for a more complicated pattern than what I'd been working on.  All the stockinette I've been doing, even if it's periodically sprinkled with yarnovers and decreases (ala Lisette) was just making me bored.  And the pattern for Marcel's Sweater is just the right kind--not too complicated, but definitely something I need to concentrate on.

So I attempted my first tubular cast-on last night, and it didn't go very well.  I followed the directions given in the glossary of IK, which tells you to cast on with waste yarn using the backward loop method.  Fine.  Except when I went to remove the waste yarn...it didn't go smoothly at all, but pulled at the edges of the main yarn, making it all loosey-goosey and messy looking.  I can tighten it up later, and I'm really only doing enough of the sleeve to see if I have the right gauge, and if I don't, then I'll have another opportunity to try the tubular cast-on (if I do, I'll take the time to pull on the edge stitches to tighten them up).  I'm going to try the method given in Nancie Wiseman's  Finishing Techniques next--she tells you to crochet a chain with waste yarn, and I know that those just zip out.

Otherwise, the pattern is fascinating.  Most of the stitches are done through the back loop, and the ssk stitches are done by slipping each stitch knitwise, putting them back on the left needle, and then knitting them through the front.  See what I mean about concentration?  I really need to think about what I'm doing.  It's very satisfying.

The Knit Pick's merino wool is also highly satisfying.  It's soft, and in this pattern it's creating a nice, dense fabric that I believe is what is meant.  Here's a close-up so you can see the stitch definition--although again, there's not a whole lot to go by right now.

(You can also see the craptastic cast on edge here.)

OK.  Time to churn out a few more cover letters, and figure out why my printer is not working. Man oh man, is it time for a whole new computer system or what?