Mothlady

Miscellaneous links

I finished Here and There Cables scarf from Scarf Style in time for mom's birthday and she seemed genuinely pleased. After that we ohhed and ahhed over my Aranmor (she said it might be the best thing I've knit so far - ooh!) and then we went through her stash (which fits in one very large basket - she's so restrained when compared to me). It's nice to have a mother who understands these things :)

I did have my camera with me to take pictures of the finished scarf, but the battery was dead. Duh. Oh well, I'll take pictures next time.

Although I've been unusually tired and very busy with work (hence no blogging) I've still been able to knit quite a bit. But it's slow going with Aranmor. The purl side rows are fairly easy because you don't need the cable needle, but the knit rows... I never knew I could be so happy about purl rows.

So, no pictures this time but here are a couple of interesting links I've come across lately.

It seems we're not the only ones with a moth problem. Even the royalty have difficulty in getting rid of them. (In fact, our moth problem hasn't been so bad lately. Could it have something to do with the fact that the hall where there's usually been moths (because of the woolly mittens, hats and scarves we keep there) was painted in May? I don't know, I'm just glad that there are less of those greedy little wool-eating buggers. And in case anyone's wondering, we've done everything: washing, freezing, airing, cedarwood, moth repellants etc. And I keep all my yarn in airtight containers.

Remember that beautiful shawl Icarus from last summer? (Yarn Harlot's version was very pretty.) I for one didn't manage to get that issue of Interweave Knit Magazine, but you can buy the pattern now.

And if you're looking for free patterns, how about that cute ballband dishcloth in Mason-Dixon Knitting? The pattern can be found here.

I think most of you might have already read it, but here's a hilarious story about a new bra by Yarn-a-Go-Go. Snort. That was funny.

P.S. Pssst, want some pure, uncut muskox wool? Canadians and Americans have their own qiviut pushers, but here's a European connection. Now go get your fix, the secret password is "Do you take Visa".

What is up with Bloglines?

Is it just me or has Bloglines acted strangely lately? They said that there shouldn't be any phantom posts or duplicates because it's actually people doing some alterations on their posts, but nearly every time somebody posts something, Bloglines tells me there's three new posts. Or five. Or ten. Even if there isn't any new post to begin with. Very confusing.

Anyway, I'm down to 478 unread posts now (from 560). I'm stupid enough such a stubborn person determined to read them all. It's actually quite fun to read 60 a lot of entries by one and the same blogger.

While I'm on the subject of blogs, let me just say this: I want to be Norma when I grow up. I, too, want to have a house and a garden. Quite often she tells us that she's got so much work that she won't be able to blog for some time. Of course she then blogs the very next day. Or she writes the posts in advance. If I didn't like her blog so much, I would have to hate her, you know? I mean, if I'm buried under work, blogging is the last thing on my mind. And she does yoga as well. I tried Pilates for the first time yesterday and chose Pilates for Dummies because it was supposed to be an "easy-to-follow workout". Now I feel like somebody beat my back with long sticks. Rolling like a ball and open leg rocker are easier said than done.

Norma also posts great pictures of her garden. I saw an oystercatcher for the first time in my life on Tuesday, in our backyard. It's a funny-looking bird with an orange beak, so I knew at once what it was. I rushed to get my camera, pressed the zoom button and heard the familiar whirring sound. Except it wasn't the sound of the zoom coming out, it was the camera shutting itself off. The battery was dead, the bird got scared of the noise and hopped slowly away. But it really was there, the oystercatcher. Right in our backyard. Just a few meters from our balcony. *sigh*

Just to show you that I haven't gone all cuckoo (pun intended), here's a little something I started on Wednesday with a cotton/polyamid yarn.

I intend to finish this sweater as soon as possible. It will come handy on those long, cool August nights when I'll be waiting for that bird to return. Just me and my camera. And possibly some knitting, if I venture to loosen my grip on the camera.

I love (and hate) Bloglines

One of the rare non-knitting blogs I read is Sharp Corners. She didn't blog at all for over two months, so imagine my surprise when Bloglines announced that her blog was active again. This is why I love Bloglines, it makes it very easy to keep tabs on blogs that interest me. If you have a knitter gambler blogger who's notoriously infrequent in posting but for some reason you want to read her blog, I suggest you sign up with Bloglines. I suppose there are other free services besides it, but I've found it a handy tool and have looked no further.

On the other hand, Bloglines tells me I've got 92 unread posts at the moment. I'll read all of them eventually and I'm glad somebody (or something) is keeping track of them for me, but it can also be daunting to see the number grow every day while I'm in my work induced coma. You guys always have so much to blog about :)

Miriam asked what kind of yarn I'm thinking of using for Ophelia. I might actually buy the kit from Tradewind Knitwear (check out the hilarious Cables After Whiskey, too). I remember seeing the kit maybe a year ago and thought that it was too expensive then (and I usually never use the yarn the pattern calls for), but I've enjoyed knitting the Lillehammer kit very much: no fiddling with the needles/swatches/pattern etc. And this would be an excellent way of spending some of those casino winnings, n'est-ce pas?

Psychotic knitting

(Thanks to Cookie for today's title)

I haven't had much time to search for other Olympic knitters with insane big projects, but here are a few I've come across:

Cathy (Bohus), Krafty1 (St. Moritz), Seltsame (Aran sweater), Dharia (St. Moritz) and The Tangled Web (Bohus). Let me know if you know any others, it's fun to see how other people are doing.

Even though progress seems slow, Lillehammer is finally starting to look like a sweater.

I'm maybe half a day late in my schedule, but it's still doable. The weird thing is that all the time I've been worried that my knitting is too loose, but now it seems a little too tight. So heavy steaming/blocking will be needed.

More drama

First of all, I can't understand how I forgot to mention this as one of the funniest posts of 2005:

I guess all of us have had that horrific dream where you realize you're naked in a public place. Yarn Harlot did it for real. Technically speaking she did have underwear, but still... And then she wrote about it. Kudos to her, I would have emigrated to Greenland or, at the very least, demanded a brain transplant.

This is the stuff legends are made of. Yesterday Norway's Frode Estil stumbled at the start of the 30 km pursuit.

He waited for 45 seconds to get a new ski...

...and then set off in pursuit of the others.

He took silver and lost the gold medal by 0.6 seconds. An unbelievable feat.

I'm still knitting the main pattern, so nothing spectacular yet. But tomorrow I will probably begin Pattern II with the beautiful horses.

Blogs, blogs, blogs

I've spent a lot of time reading other people's blogs lately. I wrote about this topic in November and if I compare today's numbers with the ones I had then, you can see some increase here.

1. Blogs on my Bloglines Notifier list: 18 (11 in November)

2. Blogs that I've put under 'Checked' in my Favourites: 13 (9)

3. Blogs under the heading 'Check These': errr... 67 (15)

My latest additions to group 1 are Grumperina, Words & Wool (not to be confused with Wool & Words, hehehe) and Sharp Corners, which is a non-knitting blog. I know some of you read Grumperina regularly and I guess for the same reasons I do: she's very talented, original, and even exotic with those Russian roots. And she posts excellent photos of her knitting. All in all a very good blog.

Now, when I put a new blog on Bloglines, I'm always very curious to see the number of subscribers to that particular blog. I knew Grumperina would be popular, but she has 909 subscribers! Just to give you some perspective, Yarn Harlot has 833 and the number has been growing in the last few weeks due to the Knitting Olympics. And then there's Sharp Corners, which I discovered through The Best of Blogs Awards 2004. She was also the Blogcritics' pick of the week in 2005. Now guess how many subscribers she has? 5. This just goes to show you that knitters are faithful readers and not everybody agrees with me on what is a funny and good blog. But still, as moths and carpet beetles give us constant grief, it was almost comforting to read that the Sharp household has had termites (which at least to me gives a whole new meaning to the saying "well, that's Florida for ya") and palmetto bugs.

Like Grumperina, Words & Wool is the sort of blog I read with awe. How does she manage to knit so much, and such gorgeous things? As Alyssa might read this I won't voice my opinion that it has to do with some sort of knitter cloning, but she does knit scarves to die for. A lot.

What about the funniest posts of 2005, then? There are many funny bloggers, but there are two posts that really had me in stitches. Now remember, you may not find this funny and so forth, but here goes:

Stitchy McYarnpants is always funny, but she really outdid herself on this one. You know how some cats act as if nothing happened? Even if they are caught redhanded? Hilarious with the lingo and all!

The second is one of the first ever blogs I read. It was a pleasant surprise to see someone write about something going wrong with your knitting, usually people just shove the less successful knits in the closet or rip them out without telling anyone. But Sable Stasher is a very good knitter, just look at this exquisite vest she's knitting at the moment. And she has a very cute Alsatian.

Now tell us your favourite blogs. Any humorous posts we should know about?

Don't be a stranger

EDIT: Oh great, now Typepad won't show the Dale yarn picture. Let's see if I can upload it again.

EDIT 2: It's there now, but let me know if you can't see it.

This week's Joke of the Week Award will go to Anonymizer's technical support for their response to my cries of help:

Please call us during our normal business hours so that we can further assist you with your request. Our phone numbers and business hours are located below.

Hello! You're in California and I'm in Europe! There's no way I'm calling you in the middle of the night! Okay, okay, they also said they would call me, but I still had a good chuckle over that.

The second Joke of the Week Award will go to River Belle Casino for their surprising marketing tactics. I get a lot of emails and snail mail from casinos every week, but this letter was one to remember. It started like this:

Dear Barry...

I may be a lot of things, but I am NOT Barry. Sure enough, the bonus slip in the envelope belonged to Barry Cxxxxx. I guess Barry got my slip. Or probably someone else's.

For the first time the total number of comments in my blog is bigger than the number of posts, so thank you all! How appropriate, as this is the National De-lurking Week. So:

Or not, if you so wish. If I like someone's blog I usually comment sooner rather than later, but not every time. For instance, I read Yarn Harlot's and Wendy's blogs, but I don't usually comment. I guess when you're commenter number 143 you don't have anything original to say :)

Here's one I like very much:

The commenter who tipped the scales was Marji. She very wisely pointed out that I should do a swatch and wash it. Now, I always knit a swatch but as soon as it's finished, I rip it out and begin the actual project. Lillehammer will be a massive but gorgeous knitting project, so I want to make sure it remains gorgeous even after washing it.

The yarn I will be using is Falk, a superwash wool by Dale. Here is my Dale altar.

I ordered the kit one size too large because apparently there is a real possibility that one might use more yarn than Dale expects us to use. I'm not taking any chances, so my answer to Miriam's question is yes, I will probably knit the socks or the mittens because I have some extra yarn. And yes, Twig, I hope to finish it by the closing ceremony in Torino. I don't know yet how realistic that is (if at all), but I will have almost two and a half weeks off from work so I will have plenty of time to knit.

Lillehammer will be the perfect sweater to wear when you go out walking in the snowy woods. When the sea freezes and the city is covered with a soft layer of snow, I will get my mittens and my socks and...

Oh. Maybe not this winter.

Yarn for a sweater

Lately I've been so fed up with computer problems that I am just about ready to give up blogging altogether. The problem is this: I use Anonymizer (or Total Net Shield to be exact) to hide my ip address. If you use e.g. StatCounter, you probably know how detailed info you can get on everyone who visits your blog. I also use Norton's firewall. Norton had some fancy pansy upgrade a few weeks ago and now I've got their "Protection Center" on my computer. It's so efficient in keeping me from harm's way that it'll probably prevent me from knitting with acrylic yarn, buying dodgy food or listening to my ancient Duran Duran tapes. Anonymizer slows down the Internet connection, but with the new Norton my dsl connection can barely keep up with a snail going on crutches. Now add to that Typepad's own problems, and blogging/uploading pictures/commenting is virtually impossible. Yesterday and today have been a bit better, but not much. I sent email to the support, let's see what they have to say about it.

I haven't had much time to knit, but here's how far I've gotten with the bird mittens.

Or a bird mitten, I still have to knit the other one. I want to hone my fair isle skills because...

The Winter Olympics are just a month away, so I was pleased when I heard that the yarn and pattern for my fair isle project had arrived. I was also a bit anxious because that meant I could meet Dumb and Dumber again. And who did I see once I went to the customs? Why, Mrs. Dumb of course. I could see by the look on her face that A. she remembered me and B. my complaint had been heard. There were two people serving the customers and I got the other one, a young man who, although he was quite handsome (if you like the type who look like they spend all their free time in solariums) soon made it clear he was a customs officer to the core. Mr. Smug wasn't as bad as Mrs. Dumb had been (who BTW kept chirping that "Norwegian wool is the best in the world" in a phony attempt to break the ice), but he made it clear that handling my petty yarn was the most boring and tedious job he'd ever done. *sigh* I guess they employ only people with little or no sense and absolutely no manners.

But I got my yarn! I've never done an Olympic sweater before, so I thought it was time to knit one. The official sweater for Torino looks like this.

It's very pretty and all, but don't you just slip into a coma when looking at that plain stockinette? I wanted something else. For some strange reason I couldn't find any yarn shops in Europe that  would sell Dale kits, so I got mine from Allegro Yarns in Minnesota. I highly recommend them, they have very nice service and super fast delivery. They even sent me six extra patterns. How about Cortina, the very first Olympic sweater from 1956?

But even though these patterns are very beautiful...

   

...I decided to stick to my original plan. Behold, Lillehammer 1994.

Happy new year!

A prosperous new year to all, knitters and gamblers alike!

Yes, I'm still here, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I've just been really busy with work. And I've slept a lot (I guess all that knitting before Christmas tired me out).

I got into a slow start so I had to do extra work this week to keep up with the deadlines, which meant no knitting. As a freelancer I should be grateful for the fact that I've got more work than I actually need, but I swear that without deadlines I would never get any work done. But I must be doing something right, because I was pleasantly surprised when a publisher contacted me out of the blue. They asked me to translate a book even though I haven't done any work for them before (nor translated any books or novels either). Usually translators contact publishers for work, and not the other way around. But I'm fully booked (ha! pun intended) until June, so I had to say no thanks.

I have been trying to blog about my stash for about a week now, but I'm having a hard time posting the pictures. Does anyone else have similar problems with Typepad or is it just me?

Knitting up a storm

Typepad was down yesterday and they lost my previous post. I had to repost it, and there are still pictures missing from other posts. I hope they get their act together soon.

I love the miracle of felting. It's uncanny how these giants...

...could turn into these snug slippers.

They turned out to be a little too snug for my taste. When I took them out of the washing machine they were so tiny, but I was able to stretch them into my feet. I hope I got the size right for my mother.

Name: Fuzzyfeet

Designer: Theresa Vinson Stenersen at knitty.com

Yarn: Three balls of Drops Alaska (100% wool, 75 m per 50 g) in colour #11

Needle Size: 7mm

Date Completed: December 14, 2005

Random thoughts: Although I added some extra length to the slippers, they felted almost too much when compared to the Knitty pumpkins I did with the same yarn. I used a bigger needle this time, so the yarn had room to felt as much as it could. But wet felted wool is suprisingly easy to stretch and reshape.

- - - - - -

Next up is the kitty bed. It turned out to be a black hole that was sucking yarn by the skein.

Here it is in its prefelting enormity.

After one wash cycle it still looked like a very happy one-eyed whale. So I put it through another cycle, and then a third one which might have been too much for this yarn.

Here it is drying out on a stool.

All it needs now is a good shave and then we'll see what Bettina has to say about it.

Name: Kitty Pi

Designer: Wendy D. Johnson at http://wendyknits.net/

Yarn: Five skeins of Bulky Lopi (100% wool, 60 m per 100 g) in colour #1415 and half a skein of #9998

Needle Size: 12mm

Date Completed: December 14, 2005

Random thoughts: The original pattern used 150 grams of yarn, but my version weighs 550 grams! And to think I was worried it might be too small... But it's sturdy and after a bit of shaving it will be purrfect. The third wash cycle was probably too much as the yarn got very fuzzy. Two and half cycles would probably have been best.

- - - - - -

Here's some eye candy.

This is how far I've gotten with the gift scarves.

The colours are fairly accurate in the first two pictures, but Ginger on the right is actually even more colourful than it looks like here. To tell you the truth, it gave me a shock at first. The reds were much more prominent than I thought, and there are also blues, browns, greys and a touch of olive green. But then again Whimsey in the middle was much more subdued than I expected. It's a very nice mix of subtle pastels. After a short briefing with The Highest Authority I decided to do a switch. Ginger will go to my MIL and Whimsey to my sister instead of the other way around.

Skeins knit so far: 2 2/3

Skeins to be knit before the 25th: 5 1/3

Will I be able to finish all four scarves before Christmas? Will my SO think I'm completely nutty? Will somebody accidentally wash one of the scarves in a 90 C cycle after Christmas? In that case, will I strangle them with the scarf? How slowly? Confused? You won't be after the next episode of... Christmas Mania.