Leonine Ponderances

There’s something really satisfying about reaching into a pretty box full of WIP hats (this happens when you attempt to do ~80 hats assembly line style) without look and just grabbing a handful of hat bodies to knit earflaps on to.

Earflaps are quick to knit so easy to feel sense of accomplishment that I’m reaching in more than once a day for more hats. Will hopefully get through what I have quickly enough to have time to knit extra hats on top of what I already have

I was knitting so furiously in June with an average of three hat bodies per day (sometimes with 5 in a day to compensate for a 1 hat day) that I had to stop knitting altogether for the last 10 days of June cause I was starting to feel the consequences.

Doing better and it helps that it’s much easier to “just finish this earflap” because each is only about 200 stitches altogether! Easy to just do a couple here and there.

Running short of days but have a slim hope that I might actually make my goal, especially if I deliver them myself in San Diego which would buy me a little extra time.

Should find a campground in the San Diego area!

Was so enamoured of yesterday’s cast on, the Multi-Directional Scarf, that I picked it up and worked it for the first hour or so and got through the first repeat of the short row section and the first fast inch of the next.

Then I made myself put it down and work on Blankie #4 while thinking about what I’d do for today’s cast on.

Progress on the Blankie: Finished the 5th ball… only one left.

Consulting the lineup in Ravelry, I decided to go with the Granny Bag as I wanted something particularly mindless. Looking at the pattern I saw that it really didn’t matter what kind of square you had but was more about the assembly of the squares. I plan to really have fun with that later but for now a basic bag will do.

I wanted to use some of my huge stash of Bernat Berella 4″ obtained at steep discounts last year due to Michaels clearance sale but couldn’t get at it without waking my mother. So I went with black and green thin worsted acrylics instead that I had laying around. The green comes from an Ebay lot of 20 sk (300yds each) that I bought years ago in a misguided attempt to save money but that’s another story. 20 skeins is way more than I needed so this would be a good way to try using up some of it so the squares are more green then black (Lion Brand Wool Ease).

Also decided to make the 7 round square to get a bigger bag. I did a stupid thing near the end of the first square and snipped the black end even though I noticed that where it was sticking out, it probably wasn’t woven in. But no… I had to cut it, then pull and sure enough the black row (5th) started popping loose. And I’d already crocheted the whole 6th row of green on top of it. Had to rip it out but managed to salvage most of the 5th and then finish the square.

Did 4 rounds of the next before calling it quits for the night. Only need 16 squares to construct the bag so will be interesting to see “how fast” it goes. Seems like a great market/tote bag that’s easily adjustable in size by adding or subtracting rounds to the squares.

Not a new blog but as an exercise in refamiliarizing myself with Wordpress for an impending project at work, I decided to once again try to reboot my blog here to see if I can get it to where I want it.

I really miss blogging on a regular basis but don’t think I’ve had Leonine Ponderances in working form for 2-3 years now… not since I left MT and went to Word Press really as I lost steam for tweaking WP to work the way I wanted it to.

Here’s to third… fifth… eleventh? time being the charm!

** Found in drafts from approx Nov 10th, 2008

Captain fell down the stairs tonight. I happened to look back and see him stop to check an itch on his butt or something at the top of the stairs (or the first step actually) and his chubbiness promptly tumbled down the stairs. I was twisted already looking back and by the top I turned around to try and catch him, he was already at the bottom.

He didn’t seem hurt though.

But he’s falling down off things more and more. Doesn’t seem to have good perception of edges or balance.

He’s always been klutzy though. And he’s getting older. I’m not sure there’s much that I could do for him though.

This is a night to remember.

Watching the election results and seeing the announcement at 8pm sharp that Obama was my president with my best friend…. celebrating with the neighbors all night, including with neighbors I didn’t know as well.

Historical. No two ways about it. And probably the most historical of my life. Only down side, the end of the fight for gay equality did not happen tonight

The pluses of the day:

It rained! Thundered even!

Got out of the house. Bought a cute bed for Mina for cheap.

But everything else was bad. Felt crappy cause I feel  well again except for heavy congestion so the constant feeling of “holding my breath” or trying not to be a loud breather just got to me.

Was supposed to go to a masquerade ball with friends but that fell through. And it was suggested that I go with the one other person that I’m friendly with but haven’t spent much time with yet and I just got too nervous on top of the literal head game my sinuses were playing to overcome the panic. So I felt crappy over that too.

Didn’t even get shit together to at least go over and hang out with Dad and watch There Will Be Blood with him. More shit to feel crappy about.

Instead I watched The Promotion which perhaps I had it pegged completely wrong but I thought it was supposed to be a comedy? It isn’t… AT ALL. I wouldn’t say it doesn’t have a point at all but it doesn’t really have much of a pay off to spend 2 hours of my life watching 2 guys struggle to keep theirs together and somewhat against each other but nothing ever really happens. I kept waiting for the punchline or the big finish. So realizing that I wasted 2 hours watching that instead of at least doing the former… that really opened the depression spigot.

Visit with Angela and then Angus for a bit and felt better, resolved to at least watch something good and then go to bed and have it be a new day. Put in Hellboy 2 which was decent. I think the storyline wasn’t polished enough but it was fun visually.

Except….

That partway through the movie, I realize that I’d done a mobieus on my Silken Scabbard. It’s my National Sweater Knitting Month project and it was slow going during the Promotion to redo the cast on from last night and get through the beginning rows of 200+ stitches each.  I was on row 9 (almost 2,000 stitches!) when I realized that when I’d joined to knit in the round, my careful attempts to make sure it wasn’t twisted… had failed. No way to salvage it so I had to frog all that careful knitting.

I say careful because I was trying to be gentle with this soft lightweight yarn that’s slightly stretchy. I can sometimes be hamfisted and knit with a lot of tension.

So more annoyance because now I have to start over again… for the 3rd time. I went ahead and did it right then cause I knew if I left it to do when I was ready to start again, it’d put a damper on the next attempt.

Today was definitely a frustrating day for any yarn work. Kept thinking of one thing after the next that I wanted to work on and ended up just sitting and surfing idly instead of doing any of it. But I did do several hexagons in Maxine’s Memory afghan. Now that I’ve realized that I was wrong about how the “flowers” join together, that it’s only a single row of motifs instead of a row of assembled flower motifs in green, it should go a lot faster for the green part but I had to see if the TLC Essentials yarn was thin enough for it. The Bernat Berella turned out to be too thick to be used with a hook small enough to get gauge.

First one I did in H hook was definitely too big but the G hook worked and so I have a total of 2 green ones worked and already joined together. Next I need to count the “flowers” and work out how many more are needed and how to lay them out. Thinking about doing a double row of green pieces to make the afghan bigger without making more flowers.

Some updates:

#63 Get maintenance done on the car (the beyond oil change stuff)

The check engine light came on last Tuesday on my way to work. Historically this is not a good thing as my car belongs to a small pool of Saturn Vues whose transmissions came with elusive gremlins.

I didn’t get a clear answer from the service dept (not their fault but too long to explain) about what exactly it was but it involved replacing more parts in the transmission.

So that’s complete replacement in Jan 2004, half replaced in June 2007 and another half replaced in Oct 2008.  But less you think I’m complaining about this being a lemon, I’m not.

Why?

Because everytime Saturn has been very pro-active in fixing and replacing it themselves at zero cost to me. EVEN OUT OF WARRANTY!! Only difference is that while still under warranty, they threw in free rental cars too. Also it’s important to notice that my car has never broken down on me. The incident in June 2007 involved someone else behind the wheel of my car out of my sight when it “broke down” and a situation that was very hinky to begin with (read: ultimately my fault for getting it into that situation). But Saturn still fixed it.

Saturn definitely stands behind their cars so I’d buy again… if they hadn’t ruined everything that I loved about the Vues that made it unique (curved box, weird headlights, etc). Now it looks like a lot of other SUVs out there.

Best part is that at 97,000 miles and approaching  6 years of age, it’s never given me trouble. Taken me everywhere I wanted to go, even hauling all kinds of stuff and dogs too (camping this summer with 7 dogs and 4 people anyone?)

The brakes were overdue to be worked on and I took advantage of the fact that they were doing the transmission for free to use the $$ towards the brakes. So that’s done. And they aligned my wheels for free too.

So I’m all good for now! Definitely crossing this off my list since it was mainly about the brakes which are now done.

p.s. I really must commend the guys responsible for the “courtesy car wash” as my car was filthy with months of built up layers of freeway dust. My car’s a beautiful leaf green but at that point the hood of my car looked ecru to me thanks to the play of light off the dust. Anyone would be hardpressed to tell you (from the drivers seat) that it was green!

Not only did they scrub it all off but they also took care to remove all the magnets from the back of my car and wash underneath them. They even WASHED the magnets themselves!! You’d be surprised how much grit the magnets pick up and hold underneath but right now they’re smooth & clean.  Go Saturn of the Valley!!

#65 Thoroughly clean out the car. Vacuum and scrub all surfaces til as new as possible.

Early this summer, I cleaned out the car to get it ready for the vacumn and scrubbing but didn’t get around to it. But for a long time, managed to keep the car fairly clear of clutter. Even now, it’s not as bad as it used to be though definitely need to do it again.

Now’s a good time for it to make the interior as clean and “red up” as the exterior!

Earlier today I was suddenly reminded of a dream that happened last night.

I was with Angus in a group of people, his friends or people he knew. I was chatting a guy and several things clicked.

1) It was this guy:

2) The day before he’d accepted the friend request on Facebook (this is true actually) and ….

3) I’d classified him in my mind then as “actor who’d be fun to hang with but never gonna happen”.

4) Argh, I’d had a brain fart cause #3 isn’t right since there he was.

And in the dream, I remember saying something to him about the Facebook, that I was wondering what the heck when the confirmation came through because I’d forgotten I knew him. And he laughs.

Definitely bizarro dream in that it combines minor real life events with not impossible to really happen factor of living in Hollywood to create a scene in my head that feels like real memory.

I’m pretty sure that it’s not a real memory other than the fact that he is on my facebook now but this is the kind of thing that makes me feel crazy sometimes cause I dislike not being able to remember things clearly or not be able to trust my memory.

In barely related news, Ryan and I stopped in at Amoeba on Sunday and he pointed out a guy in a red shirt with a bit of a punky mohawk thing going on. I agreed, it did look like the “lost” hobbit. After all, we’d heard that he lived somewhere in my neighborhood. But I just went back to looking for a cheap copy of Mr Holland’s Opus.

Finally found a place online that was selling all 3 of the patterns I’ve been looking for for a while. It’s annoying in the age of the Internet to have to hunt for a place that sells and then pay shipping for something that is easily transmitted in pdf form online.

But Oat Couture and Noni Designs don’t use it. Probably because they’re nervous about people passing around the pdfs instead of buying their own copy.

I digress. ParadiseFibers.net had the patterns and reasonable shipping cost of $2.40 for 3 patterns.

* The Noni cascading fuschias market bag pattern that I bought the yarn for early this summer!

* Oat Couture’s Curlicue Coverlet – the model doesn’t look spectacular but it’s what people have done with multiple colors and variegated ones that have me chomping at the bit to do my own. Will be the first time I KNIT an afghan. Some inspirational FOs:  Solaris, Purlingswine, and FuzzyKaren

* Oat Couture’s Stowaway Bag – I’ve already been making some market bags out of free patterns or my own but I wanted to see how they did theirs with the stowaway bottom.

In the meantime,  I have the “1 skein’s worth of a Clapotis” photo for you that I mentioned before. I’m currently at the end of 4 skeins but not sure how far I am in to the pattern as written. Might end up adding length.

Clapotis - One Skein

I don’t blog about my knitting and crocheting nearly as much as I’d like to which means I don’t really have a clear journal of my progress or way to later gauge how much time was spent on things etc.

Keep feeling like I have to blog about it all.

So tonight, will just talk about what I did today.

First, I worked on my Sunflowers Afghan. There’s 4 colors involved in a motif (the section that is repeated over and over and then sewn together to make the whole afghan). Dk brown for the center (seeds), yellow for the leaves, then a round of green, a round of dk blue, and another round of green. So far I’ve done only up to the blue round as I still need to dig out that skein of blue that I have.

I’m undecided whether to stick with the color scheme as indicated in the book or go all green. Will do one of each and take pictures.

In the meantime, been doing more motifs because with the yarn changes, it’s very easy to just assembly line it. Today I managed to use up the rest of the dk brown skein which shows me I can get 10.5 motifs out of a dk brown skein. Will be useful for figuring how many more to set aside when I figure out how big I want to make it.

Been thinking these might make fun baby blankets too. Keep the motifs the same size but just put fewer together and do it in a softer yarn. Certainly a lot of babies in my life, my cousins have a bunch and other people do too.

Then I decided it was time to see what the love for the clapotis was all about. It’s one of the two KALs this month in Village Hopelessly Overcommitted, and Kimberli helped me out by looking at my stash and recommending Elann’s Pegasus, which is a nice cotton/rayon yarn. Has a nice feel to it. And I had a bag of an intense blue color which should be enough for it plus a skein or two left over for fingerless mitts to match.

Using K’s adapted spreadsheet that is written to purl the stitch to be dropped instead of using a ton of stitch markers. So far so good. Still in section 2, working up the increases.

Good mindless knitting but I still have to pay attention to remember to twist the appropriate stitches.

EDIT:  Finished the first skein and got to 89 stitches which is the end of the 6th repeat. 1.5 left to go in Section 2 and then it’s straight knitting for a while. So just need to make sure I have 1.2 skeins left for the decreasing end.

Liking this so far, fast knit and fast gratification to see something coming out of the needles