Estuary finished!

I finished "estuary" last night. Corriedale superwash, fiber dyed by spunky eclectic, 4 oz, don't know how many yards, 2ply. The singles were super fuzzy. I was concerned. But the plying seemed to tame the frizzies a little. Anyone know if fuzzyness is a characteristic of corriedale, or superwash? Or something else?

I am pleased with the final yarn. I changed my mind, and I'll keep this for myself and spin something brighter for my mom. She is more of a bright, bold color person. I'm thinking of spunky's thunderstorm. Unless I run out of time. Then she might get this one after all. :)

Christmas presents

I'm going to try knitted Christmas presents this year. I ordered yarn for 2 last night, and started on another.


This is "estuary" from spunky eclectic, 100% corriedale superwash. For my mom. I'm just going to give her the yarn. Is it a bad idea to put christmas present ideas on the internet?

It's a blog Revival!

I've been thinking about reviving the blog for some time now, and today's the day. I was inspired because last night I went to church.

Although I currently am non-religious, I grew up going to an Episcopalian church, which this also happened to be, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed being in the familiar setting, with the smell of...whatever it is that makes churches smell the way they do (candles? wooden pews? I don't know). I was also surprised that even though I don't really believe in the stuff the church believes in, I still considered the sanctuary a sacred space. I really took offense to a woman in my pew who was eating her fast food dinner, and to the fact that they were selling books inside the sanctuary. Interesting that I still think these things are important.

So since people were eating and books were being sold, you may have guessed that this was not a normal church service. In fact it was a reading by the Yarn Harlot herself!


We're going to call this photo "artistic", ok? I am not the best multitasker, and my limit is 2 things at once. The two things here are knitting, and being in the presence of knitting celebrity. Photoing fell by the wayside, unfortunately. Anyway, that is Stephanie there, holding up her sock and photoing the audience.

She was charming, funny, very real and touching. She said one thing that really hit home with me, that when you feel like a total loser, knitting tells you that you are a competent person and you can make great socks. Right on, sister. She was promoting a new book of essays, Free Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again, and a page-a-day calendar, neither of which I have yet but will be picking up shortly from Porter Square Books, who hosted this event. If Stephanie comes to your town, you should go. It was a good time.

A near fight over fiber choice on the red line

Characters:
YS=yarn snob, woman next to me on train
Me=me

Scene: Mid-morning train.

Enter Me (wearing a lovely spring dress) sit down next to YS, pull out knitting.



YS: What kind of yarn is that?
Me: (Thinking she is not a knitter, like 99% of the people who ask me knitting questions on the train) It's wool
YS: Oh, like just merino? Is it Koigu?
Me: (Oh, she is a knitter. whoops) No, it's Knit Picks
YS: (Appears ill, recoils) ohhhhh.
Awkward pause
YS: You know, if you like lace knitting, you should try my favorite yarn (insert favorite yarn, it's cashmere). It's $45 for a skein but you get 400 yards! So really it's a bargain.
Me: (Hm. This Knit Picks has 440 yards and it cost $2.50. (Ok it's not cashmere, but it's merino and it's $2.50!!!) Don't mention this, might start a fight) Yes, that's one great thing I've noticed about lace knitting, you get a lot of yardage for your money.
YS: [Lists things you can make with 400 yards of cashmere laceweight, mainly hat, baby sweater]
Me: (Why does a baby need a cashmere laceweight sweater?? Aren't they just going to spit up on it? I have no babies, what do I know, hold tongue) Usually I like to buy nicer yarn, but I thought I would try this one because I'm going to make a whole lace shawl for less than $10!
YS: (Does not appear swayed by this argument. Recoils further) Well if I'm going to spend so much time with lace yarn on small needles, I just like to be good to myself, because my hands cramp up.
Me: what?
YS: yeah, I get cramps because the needles are so small
Me: (WTF do hand cramps have to do with fiber choice? smile, nod, ignore)

Implanon removal

I had the implanon removed this morning, they actually let me take pictures (one of the doctors/nurses even did it for me!), and it was no big thing. Nothing at all like this. Without further ado...


So that's my arm, surrounded by a white towel thing, and two pairs of doctor hands, and some scarry looking pliers. Guess how many doctors/nurses it takes to remove an implanon? 4. Well, some of them were just watching. It was cool though, because I got to ask them lots of hard questions about birth control.


And there's the little bugger coming out. Doesn't it look like the pliers are grabbing onto a nipple? Fortunately for me, that was not the case.


And the aftermath. The whole thing, including cleaning and numbing, probably took 10 minutes, and I hardly felt a thing.

Pics at the doc?

I'm about to go to PP on Monday to get an implanon removed. Do you think they'll let me take pics to put on the blog? I don't think so, but I'll ask. That would be a sweet post.

(Before anyone gets too excited there, the implanon goes in your arm. woo-woo)

A month of science, the Southwest, and stitches

Hi there. It's been a month. Well I've been busy. I was working like mad to get ready for a meeting. Exciting times at our apartment.


But then I got to go to Santa Fe.

Isn't it cute? That above is the plaza. In the plaza we saw a medicine man.


Ok so it's not the best picture. But there was a guy in the plaza dressed head to toe in fur, and people kept calling him "doc". I was taking a covert camera phone shot, so this is the best I could do. Also it snowed.


And my hotel had really good rocks in the shower.


And I got to eat some migas.


Also I've been knitting after a brief hiatus.
I finished Bartholomew's socks from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters. You all need this book, by the way.


Then I started Veli of Leaves, from the same book.

And I even made 1.5 Noro scarves!













Also I decided that my position on Iraq is that we should leave ASAP. So ignore that previous post.

Whew!