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Amuse Me Knittastic!

Fifty Most Influential Female Bloggers…

I am finding all sorts of great sites on this list of 50 most Influential Female Bloggers – but I have to confess that I squealed out loud (and twittered my excitement) when I saw that the Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, is listed as number 15! FIFTEEN!!! That is so awesome!

I still remember commenting to Matt at SxSWi back in 2005 or so that knitbloggers rule the world. This proves it, right?

Oh, and an added bonus? The photo that they used for the site? One of mine! I took it when she came to Houston for a book signing at my local yarn shop, Twisted Yarns. I thought it looked familiar…

The Yarn Harlot

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Knittastic!

I Think We Have A Problem…

So I’m not using the recommended yarn for my Einstein Coat, but I am getting gauge — so it shouldn’t be a problem, right? WRONG.

While waiting for things to upload to the server, I took the bottom portion and held it up to me to see the length; the top portion of the coat is only 39 ridges of garter stitch. My project? Yeah, not even close to the length it needs to be. Not close at all. Not even if it is reaaaaaaally stretched out.

No point in keeping this up because it won’t fit. I’m resisting the urge to throw the yarn ball across the room right now. *sigh*

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Knittastic!

Whirlwind Calmed by Knitting…

I feel like I’ve been constantly busy, and yet I have nothing to say. Weird, huh? I blame it all on Twitter. Twitter has eaten my brain. If I can cram it all into 140 characters, do I really have that much to say?

Last week I had several meetings that I scheduled while Mike was out of town the week before. They needed to be in the evening, and I didn’t want to leave Jason home alone for extended periods of time on a school night. I looked forward to Friday, as I’ve made myself set a standing personal appointment with Twisted Yarns and the Friday knitting circle to make sure I get away from the computer! (I move it if I have to, but I really try to avoid doing that — I find that taking a break is actually a good thing!)

When I went to the yarn shop, I brought along all of the pieces of my Cambridge Jacket that I knit out of the Brooks Farm 4-Play yarn and handed it off to LynnAnne to do the seaming for me. The pieces have been done for well over a month now, and it was just sitting there waiting to be seamed. I would rather knit something new. My spare time seems to be quite valuable these days, and why spend it with something I don’t love doing? I feel a little bit like I’m cheating, and at the same time a huge weight to finish it is lifted off of my shoulders. So that made it all worth it. Once she finishes with that, I still have to put on the collar and do the crochet edging, so it isn’t quite finished yet. I have a feeling I won’t be wearing it this winter unless I turn the air conditioning on really cold in the house!

Two weeks ago I started the “Do Your Own Math” shawl available to Knit at Night Guild members – basically a garter stitch shawl. Another one of the Twisted Yarn knitters had made one some time back, and I bought the 5 skeins of Mountain Colors Bearfoot needed that very day, so inspired by hers! (It didn’t help that it was the holiday gumball sale that day – I got the yarn at 20% off!) As I started, restarted, and restarted it again, I realized that while the joy of being wrapped in Bearfoot is a good thing, I’m also less likely to wear a shawl because I’m not very tall and it might make me look like a big blob. I also noted that the gauge I was getting was pretty spot on with the gauge required by the Einstein Coat, which I have wanted to make for years. I’ve never made one though, because it was going to be too heavy if made out of regular yarn for regular Texas wear. But the sock yarn, knit loosely? So far, fabulous! So we’ll see if it all works out. I’m 50 ridges into the 166 or so required for the bottom half of the coat; it has been going very fast! I *heart* Garter Stitch!

Yes, photos. Uhm, I seem to be terrible about taking personal photos lately. Working on that – photos to follow, hopefully.

Friday night our friend Brittany came over to knit with me (she is working on the shawl that I had started, since I inspired her to do it – and then stopped making mine), and we all watched “Grandma’s Boy”. Oh goodness. That was just hysterical. Seriously hysterical. It seemed I needed a good mindless movie. I keep quoting lines from it to Mike! Plus how can you resist a movie where the main character is a video game testers, where they don’t play with bad boosters at all, when people would love to have that kind of job, trying the latest games and hardware as the processor from this amd fx 6300 3.5 ghz 6 core processor review. Oh, and there was knitting in the movie, which made it all appropriate!

I have been knitting more today along with getting housework done. I feel a lot calmer going in to Monday, and I attribute a lot of that to the joy of wool!

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BlahBlahBabble Knittastic!

What a Week!

Whew! What a week it has been! Mike & I started Weight Watchers on Monday. We are doing the Online version because I know we would end up skipping meetings, whenever I’ve done the meetings they talked about things on the site that I had already read, and because Elaine is doing the meetings at her work so she is keeping an eye on us to make sure we are in line. I’m actually moving our weigh-in day to today to sync up with her.

By Tuesday, my stomach was feeling queasy. I blamed it on the increased fiber intake. I was blissfully trying to ignore the fact that Jason had been sick 36 hours earlier and was still home from school. Oh no, it was the fiber. That evening, it shifted to having to admit that oh no, the fiber had nothing to do with it. Fiber doesn’t cause a fever.

Of course, I had a client meeting scheduled for Wednesday. I was not going to risk making anyone else sick though, so we moved it to Thursday and I instead spent Wednesday in bed. Still with a fever.

Thursday, feeling much better, I headed to The Woodlands to meet with my potential client and her mom – and learned while talking that she had found us because she is friends with Dan, the brother of the Emergency Bride, Lauren! Even more ironic, Lauren & I had already made plans to get together for lunch after my meeting! So it ended up feeling like visiting with long lost friends, and they were so fabulously cool. I was even more fascinated by the fact that she does college counseling for high school students – so part of our meeting wandered off into talking about Jason and his college future. I ended up devouring her site last night, reading all the articles she had linked to – things like her work just fascinate me. You can check it out if you’re curious over at Burnt Crimson. (She has all sorts of great posts there.)

Afterwards, I had to head to the iPhone store to have them help me reset my phone, as it had locked up after I got off a call. I did the whole hold down two buttons for a very long time thing about 10 times before I went in, but it didn’t work. Of course, as soon as they did it, it worked fine. *rolling my eyes at my phone* So I was able to hook up with Lauren for lunch after all!

Funny, isn’t it? We don’t memorize phone numbers anymore. So when technology bites us like that, we are lost!

Today is Twisted Yarn’s 4 Year Anniversary sale! (Well, it is tomorrow too.) So Katy & I are going over there to celebrate and get some knitting time. To be honest, I need a few hours away from the computer, away from “work” thinking (although really it never stops it seems when you’re the boss of you), and to just knit and be social. I’ve got my Noro packed, and my sweater that I finished the pieces on and need to stitch together so I need advice on how to do it – I forgot to steam block it last night, so I won’t get to do it while I’m there as planned. Bummer!

If I don’t return, I’ve succumbed to the yarn fumes. You’ll find me among the wool. Most likely Mountain Colors, but there could be some Cascade involved, and maybe some nice Malabregio laceweight too…

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Knittastic!

Do They Even Know How to Knit?

Many people out there are trying to claim they died in a knitting accident. I wonder though … do they even know how to knit? Would they know a knit from a purl, or what garter stitch even is? Show me some lace that you’ve knit, or a cable or two, and then I’ll believe it.

Although considering how sharp and fine the sock needles I use when I knit are, it is entirely possible I could die in a knitting accident. Maybe I should reconsider sock knitting while riding in the car?

(If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, read this. Props to Imelda for passing it on to me!)