pretty kitty knitty city

moved to a new blog home

2006-05-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

I have moved my blog to a new home. http://prettykittyknittycity.com. Please come visit me there!

Sorry to make you change your bookmark/bloglines feed.

P.S. A warning - it's a little pink.

my mom rocks

2006-05-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

When my mom came to visit me in February, I took her to the climbing gym. I wanted her to see where I spend so much of my time and maybe try it so she wouldn't be so worried that something was going to happen to me. She did so well! And she's been asking me forever to put the pictures I took up so she can show her friends, so Happy Mother's Day, mom!

getting all tied in

having fun with chalk just like spiderman she keeps an eye on the competition cruising up the wall happy climbers

oh knitting, how I've missed you

2006-05-12T00:38:00.000-07:00

I've been going through my pictures because I never delete anything and I have gagillabyte of images on my laptop. And I found some pictures of gifted presents that I never posted. So instead of taking pictures of new things, I will post old things.

These are two baby hats (umbilical hat pattern from SnB) that I made for my physical therapist. The yellow one is made from Rowan Handknit Cotton and the green one is made from Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. She chose not to know the gender, so that's why I made two. I think that is a bold and exciting thing to do, to be surprised, and I think when I ever get around to having babies I will do the same thing, if only to piss off my family and all my friends who are attached to gender-specific baby gear. She turned out to be a girl, and she looks very cute in the pictures she has sent me. And I love giving baby hats in those little IKEA boxes. mwah mwah, IKEA.

And oh, the novelty yarn scarves for Christmas. First is Bryan's mom with a keyhole scarf made out of Lion Brand Fun Fur, then Bryan's sister with a drop stitch scarf made with a railroad-y ribbon yarn and Crystal Palace KidMerino with crystal beads in the fringe (technically I still haven't finished that one, sorry Cheryl! (damn those little beads)), and pretty much the same scarf but with Southwest Trading Company Melody with some silvery Kidsilk Haze and crystal beads in the fringe for my oldest friend Wendy.

a lovely day

2006-05-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

The weather has been so wonderfully amazingly nice here for the last few days! I rode my bike to lab today for the first time in forever, and it was great. I stopped and took some pictures of some really really bright flowers in someone's yard. The yards in Berkeley are beautiful.

I also got to go on a lunch date with my friend Dave who I never see since he joined a lab that's waaaay up the hill from my lab. We had a super yummy lunch and made a recurring date for every other Wednesday.

Also exciting - I have started knitting again! Soon I will post many pictures of knitted things. Or at least beginnings of knitted things.

Finally, cat-sized ice cream cartons

2006-04-26T01:04:00.000-07:00

Or maybe Lloyd is just a GIANT cat. You just never know.

photography by the birthday boy (and love of my life)

Dork

2006-04-13T03:23:00.000-07:00

This is my new favorite shirt. (And holy crap my bathroom mirror is gross.)

And this is how Anosha and I amused ourselves last Friday night. Liquid nitrogen is amazing - you should have heard that raquetball explode!

Edited to add:
Wait, now you can! This video is only 3 seconds long, and the raquetball breaks off camera (we were trying to break it ON the door), but if you listen close you can hear it breaking like glass! Dorks gone wild on a Friday night.

My favorite black and white canine in a yellow chair

2006-04-11T01:02:00.000-07:00

pretty poppies

2006-03-27T23:41:00.000-08:00

Tim has a nagging feeling that she is being watched

2006-03-26T02:20:00.000-08:00

Why keyboard surgery should not be attempted without a license

2006-03-25T21:07:00.000-08:00

[20:34] jennifer: my w key is hard to press
[20:35] bryan: that sucks
[20:35] jennifer: there is a lot of crap under my keys
[20:35] bryan: yes... maybe you could spray it out with one of those dusters
[20:35] jennifer: 3333sawwwwwwwq323wwww
[20:35] jennifer: i just took the key off
[20:35] bryan: hmmm
[20:36] jennifer: 4eeeeeteltee3eitifu8r
[20:36] jennifer: 4frerrferrrfdtr4r54rret5drrrrrrr
[20:37] jennifer: now my r doesn't want tot go back on
[20:37] jennifer: dman
[20:38] jennifer: 4frr446e434ee3eeedtfutt4754eee4142e32
[20:38] jennifer: oh shit
[20:38] jennifer: i think i broke
[20:38] jennifer: the r
[20:43] jennifer: 454446555rrreer
[20:43] jennifer: oh i fixd it i am a genius
[20:43] jennifer: hmm now the e is not happy
[20:43] bryan: oh my god
[20:44] bryan: you are flirting with disaster
[20:44] jennifer: 34d33d4srxeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
[20:44] jennifer: the e is dfinitly not happy
[20:44] bryan: this is a pretty funny conversation

put on a happy face!

2006-03-23T05:24:00.000-08:00

I have been inspired to hone my skills of cat torture by my new favorite website, Stuff On My Cat. Stuff plus cats really does equal AWESOME. My cats must earn their fancy cat food.

scarferrific

2006-03-21T22:33:00.000-08:00

I finally finished Cynthia's Irish Hiking Scarf. She bought the Elsbeth Lavold Angora, color 01 (Misty Blue) and mailed it to me, and I have turned it into a hat and a scarf. Knitting is magic.

The scarf is 68 inches long, including the fringe. My question for Cynthia is this: would you like me to block the scarf out wider so you can see the in-between cable parts, or do you like it smooshed up the way it is?

Right now it is about 5.5 inches wide. And delightfully soft.

This is how I could pin it out to block it if you'd like. Then it would be about 7.5 inches wide.

America's next top (baby) model

2006-03-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

Many, many months ago, I started a baby hat for baby Noah. I finished it about a year late, so it was a happy first birthday present instead of a new baby present. The pattern is from the Debbie Bliss Baby Knits Book.

Caution: Baby adorableness may cause uterus aching

The reason it took me so long to make the hat is that I kept ripping out the beginning because the ear flaps looked wonky to me and also when instructed to "pick up and knit" stitches, that's what I did, instead of just picking up the stitches and NOT knitting them, the way Debbie Stoller explains in Stitch 'N Bitch because knitting instructions can be a pain in the ass and not at all intuitive. This was the first hat that I have knit that is done flat and then seamed up, and now that I have gotten over all my issues with it, I would knit it again. There are also matching socks, which I bought the yarn for as well, but I had some difficulties getting started which may or may not have been wine related. Perhaps they will be a second birthday present.

Apparently Noah does not like wearing hats, but he was kind enough to model my handiwork so that Robert could take some pictures to send me. What a cutie! Thanks, Noah!

happy st. patrick's day!

2006-03-17T17:44:00.000-08:00

Keyser put his green hat on today so the other cats wouldn't pinch him.

new blue 'do

2006-03-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

When I get bored with life, instead of rearranging my furniture or doing coke with strippers, I chop my hair off or change it to a crazy color. This week I did both. I'm really mixing it up.

jennifer in action

2006-03-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

I have an action figure! Heather bought it for me at a little toy store in Williamsville when I was visiting her. I don't think I look quite as crazy as the figure.

Ok, maybe.

Extreme close-up

2006-02-23T14:31:00.000-08:00

New York is cold in the winter

2006-02-22T23:32:00.000-08:00

Enough about me, what do you think about me?

2006-02-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

If you want to pick nice-ish things about me, click here.
If you want to pick mean-ish things, then click here.

Julie Cooper would never have such ugly pets

2006-02-16T15:20:00.000-08:00

A delightful free gift arrived in my mailbox the other day from my vet. At first I just saw an ugly cat and put it in the recycle pile, but then later when I looked at it again I realized that the slightly possessed-looking woman on the cover was none other than Julie Cooper from The OC. But Melinda Clarke has some ugly pets. Julie Cooper would never have such ugly pets except perhaps if she thought very ugly pets would make her look prettier somehow in comparison, like bridesmaid's dresses.

Melinda with her obese British shorthair Bella Blue.

Melinda with her other British shorthair Bartholomew. Or maybe it's the same one, they look very similar.

Molly Mae is an ugly pug. But Melinda Clark is so pretty! And no wrinkles!

In addition to the lovely pictures, there are is an in-depth interview about her pets and The OC. My favorite parts:

"Bella is a little bit snooty about the loo," she says, with a laugh. "If the litterbox is clean, she will use it, but as soon as Bart has been in it, she avoids it."

I wonder if she uses British slang because she's famous and can do ridiculous shit like that without people saying anything or if it's because Bella is a British shorthair.

In a box about her favorite animal movies:
Stuart Little - "Stuart Little is a mouse, and he is adopted by a family that has a cat who gets jealous of him. It is a great movie about family values, and it gives the message that it does not matter if you are different; you are still part of the family, and we love you anyway. There are also a lot of cool cat stunts in the movie."

I really have a hard time believing that a grown woman said that about Stuart Little, especially one who can so convincingly play such a bitchy, ruthless character on prime time television. It makes me doubt the validity of the whole article. Damn you, Healthy Pet and your shoddy pet journalism!

Jenniferocracy

2006-02-13T14:58:00.000-08:00

This is completely ridiculous, but it amused me.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Jennifer!

Jennifer can be very poisonous if injected intravenously.
According to the story, Pinocchio was made of jennifer.
South Australia was the first place to allow jennifer to stand for parliament.
Only 55 percent of Americans know that the sun is made of jennifer.
Jenniferocracy is government by jennifer.
In Vermont, the ratio of cows to jennifer is 10:1!
If a snake is born with two heads, the heads will fight over who gets jennifer.
All gondolas in Venice must be painted black unless they belong to jennifer!
If you lie on your back with your legs stretched it is impossible to sink in jennifer.
Olive oil was used for washing jennifer in the ancient Mediterranean world.

A cute bear from a free pattern

2006-01-09T22:55:00.000-08:00

I made this bear a while ago, and then gave him to my sister-in-law without taking a picture. But I smuggled him away for some documentation while we were visiting at Christmas.

I used this pattern, but instead of the Berroco Foliage I used GGH Esprit and I used either size 10 or 10 1/2 needles (I can't remember) instead of the 11s in the pattern. His legs and belly and head are all made round by short rows, and I think the shape turns out really cute. If I was to knit another, I would go down to 9s to make it harder for the stuffing to poke out.

a very nice unexpected present

2006-01-08T21:34:00.000-08:00

The undergraduate that works with me left me a present on my desk before she left for winter break.

Such a nice present! And very, very generous. A cute basket and 15 balls of yarns! (click the picture to see them.) Her mom knits, so I'm pretty sure she suggested the idea. The problem with this lovely present is that I had not planned on giving her a gift. So I was forced to go out and buy some Manos del Uruguay (for the first time!) to make her a scarf. I think I'm going to make this one. But the yarn is so pretty I just want to pet it.

A happy ending

2006-01-05T23:19:00.000-08:00

I finished the beaded sweater from Vintage Knits quite a while ago (I posted a picture from the pattern here), but right when I was finished seaming it up I knew that it was too small for my mom. The sweater itself came out the right size according to the pattern, but it is still really small. I should have asked my mom for the measurements of a sweater that she owns that has a fit she likes, but of course I thought I was smart and that large would be fine. No, I was wrong, I am stupid and I have learned a VERY VERY IMPORTANT LESSON ABOUT KNITTING. But I will learn the lesson now since I spent somewhere between 80 and 100 hours knitting a sweater that does not fit. I knit many of those hours in Ireland, here I am by the side of the road during a photography break.

la, la, la, I am a happy oblivious knitter

The main problem is that it is too short. So for anyone wanting to make patterns out of this book, I would tell you to make sure you are comfortable with how short the tops will be (and it tells you what the final length will be RIGHT THERE in the pattern, I was just too lazy to think about what those numbers meant in real life) or add some length before you decrease for the sleeves. I should have been a little clued in to how short it would be since in every picture in the book, gorgeous women are lazing around in their fancy handknit sweaters and their underwear. Really, I'm not kidding. And you can see quite clearly that most of the sweaters are above their belly buttons. But I thought maybe they were just tall models. And in the picture for this particular sweater the model is all hunched over and you can't see how long it is. (It is apparent that I am not getting my PhD in knitting. Now that I have mastered the lost art of the tape measure, I shall never make this mistake again.) But it is also a very small large, so if you would like an average size large and to actually have some drape and not be a fancy beaded sausage casing, you would either have to do some maths to figure out a bigger size or maybe use a thicker yarn and hope the sweater magically comes out the size you want. I am too lazy for the first option and smart enough to realize the second option is insanity. I contemplated picking up the stitches at the bottom and knitting more ribbing downward, but it needs at least 2.5 inches more length and I think that will be too much ribbing and detract from the pretty beads, so I am just going to find a different beautiful sweater to knit for my mom.

my mother's failed Christmas present

I used Frog Tree Alpaca yarn in fingering weight, color number 92. I only ended up using 3.26 balls of the 6 I bought (about 700 yards), and since I bought the yarn during a sale, even with the beads this sweater only cost me about $16 to make. And the alpaca is very soft. It was kind of a pain to push all the beads down as you knit (you have to thread the beads onto each ball of yarn before you start) because the alpaca is a little hairy and the beads would get stuck on the little balls of fluff that collected as they were pushed by.

So, the happy ending is that I asked my labmate Sally if she would take the sweater home and try it on to see if it fit and to see if she liked it. And it did and she did! I am so excited that I get to give it to someone I know, and she likes it so much!

My last new knitting project for a long time

2006-01-04T23:54:00.000-08:00

Since I decided not to cast on for anything new until I finish everything I'm currently working on I have knit exactly zero stitches, which was a week ago today. I guess my fingers are protesting my decision. But luckily today the yarn arrived for the one exception to my resolution: Cynthia's hat and scarf. She wants a plain ribbed cuff hat (this pattern) and an Irish hiking scarf. She bought one of my favorite yarns, Elsbeth Lavold Angora in Misty Blue. I am going to make the hat first so that I can make the scarf as long as possible. I love knitting angora, especially today when my hands are rough and sore from going to the climbing gym.

Don't worry Cynthia, I told Lloyd to keep his cat hair-covered cuteness away from your yarns. (imagine evil cat chuckle here)

I noticed yesterday that I only take pictures of Lloyd, but this is because he jumps into the picture when I'm taking it (well, usually - the Santa suit was not his idea). Apparently I am not interesting enough for the other cats.

Stop making all those noises to make us look at you, you are booooring us.

A lost art

2006-01-03T22:30:00.000-08:00

My dad was very excited to give me this book for Christmas:

Bryan, a towel origami natural, got right to work making the elephant, and he turned out very well.

I don't know if I'll ever use my newfound knowledge of this lost art, but it's always good to add another useless skill for my cv, to go along with western blots and PCR. At least this is entertaining.

The author apparently spends a lot of time thinking about reasons you don't need a man, making candles, folding towels, dressing up dogs in fancy outfits, knitting, making birdhouses, cross-stitching, microwaving dough, and decoupage-ing. And gets paid for that. I need a new job.

Love never goes out of fashion

2006-01-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

When I was about 13, my aunt Alison knit me a sweater. I have always kept it in my closet, because even then I knew that she spent a lot of time making it. But now I really know. The colors are a little late-80s (although it was the late-80s) and it is a very hairy and itchy mohair, but there is lots and lots of love knitted into that sweater. So I wore it to work a few weeks ago. I was a vision in green, magenta, and white mohair. Even in Berkeley, I think I scared people. I really have to wear it more often.

When I was in Ireland, Alison picked out a sweater for me to knit for her. She chose the Pinup Queen sweater from Stitch and Bitch in purple. I even bought the yarn the pattern calls for, Classic Elite Lush. It is so so soft! I really wanted to have it done for her birthday on January 17th, but I have only finished a sleeve so far.

Welcoming 2006

2006-01-01T22:10:00.000-08:00

I love when a new year starts. So many possibilities, a chance to start everything over. Last year I made my resolution to be a better person. Very vague, but that was on purpose. I started volunteering at Meals on Wheels in April, delivering lunches every Wednesday, and I volunteered for and raised money with the National AIDS Marathon Training Program for the SF AIDS foundation from April to October. So far I have raised $3990! Thank you so much to everyone who sponsored me! So 2005 was the first year ever that I actually kept a resolution. And I didn't write it down anywhere, but I've been trying to stop biting my fingernails pretty much since I had teeth. The day after the marathon (November 1st), I suddenly realized how gross that habit is and didn't want to bite them anymore. So for the first year ever, that doesn't have to be one of my resolutions.

For 2006, then, I'm going to get ambitious and make more than one resolution and make them more specific. I can do it, I'm on a roll! So here is my list.

1. Be a better time manager.
2. Keep my houseplants alive.
3.(a) Clean and organize my house and get rid of all the shit we never use.
(b) Stop buying shit that we'll never use.
4. Bring my lunch to work every day.
5. Finish every single work in progress in my knitting basket before starting anything else. I have no idea how many there are, I stopped counting at 10. Except for Cynthia's hat and scarf out of lovely soft yarn that she bought and is sending me. Poor Cynthia is in Massachusetts and is very cold.
6. Make Lloyd a sweater. He definitely needs a sweater. And maybe a mustache.

Ready for a lovely new year's eve

2005-12-31T22:11:00.000-08:00

Now to clean up the living room so we can watch one of those movies. Christmas seems to have vomited everywhere. Happy New Year!

Fridge poetry for my fat cat

2005-12-18T23:10:00.000-08:00

A haiku for Lloyd.

Happy 12/5 to us!

2005-12-17T14:14:00.000-08:00

12 years ago today, my sweetie and I went on our first date, to see the now classic movie Wayne's World 2. And 5 years ago today, we got married on a lovely sunny day in Phoenix. I am very lucky to have such a wonderful sweetie. Here is a great picture of us when we were 16 and juniors in high school (I especially like my shoulder pads, too bad I don't have that Easter party dress anymore).

As wonderful as my sweetie is, I am having a hard time convincing him that going shopping for supplies to dye yarn is a good way to spend quality time today. I showed him all the pretty colors and tried to explain how fun it would be, but I don't think he's getting excited. And I have to dye yarn today if I have any chance in hell at finishing a clapotis for one of my friends for Christmas. Of course, since I want to finish two other tops and make 2 scarves during the same time, it's probably not going to happen, but I would at least like to stress myself out trying.

And all of sudden it is freezing here, and I know, it's California and not cold at all so I should shut the hell up, but it has been pretty mild all this week and then yesterday it was really chilly. Right now it is 54 degrees in our house, and the scary floor furnace won't work most likely because the pilot light is out and I called PG&E and the soonest they can come light it is Wednesday. I begged Bryan to go out in the freezing rain and crawl under the house and light it, but for some reason he doesn't want to. So I guess we'll just have to be cold for a while. (And I know it will be difficult to dye yarn outside in the rain but it MUST BE DONE TODAY so I will figure out some way to make it happen.)

Overcoming SAD

2005-11-29T22:48:00.000-08:00

For a bit of excitement this winter, I went to Target and bought a fake tree. It was much more complicated to put together than I had anticipated. I was inspired to put a tree up because Ikea has some new colorful tree decorations that I just had to have. I love Ikea.

It looks very festive and cheery. I think I need to go and get some more lights though, because I have the blue ones at the top and they are not as bright as the red and green ones. Target has an amazing selection of Christmas lights. The Christmas light technology is so advanced now! There are pearl lights, and button lights, and dewdrop lights, LED lights, and even crazy light tubing. When I am richer I will buy the fancy lights, but for now it is the regular plain old ones for $1.89 a box, although now they come in solid color strings so I guess that is a little exciting.

I am leaving the tree up until my SAD goes away or until the cats eat the entire thing, whichever comes first. This is the first year in 11 years that we have had a tree, and even our old crotchety cats are quite infatuated with all its sparkly excitement. Poor tree. Its chances aren't looking good.

Since it was the first time I actually bought holiday stuff for us, I was very overwhelmed by all the things I had to chose from. There were a million different kinds of everything imaginable. In my shopping euphoria I even bought a $30 tree skirt even though a cheapo $5 red felt one would have covered up the fake base of the fake plastic tree just fine. What a good consumer I am. And I do not need a table runner, but I had debated over which one I liked the best and put it in my cart before I realized this. Everything is so shiny and glittery and colorful. I love the colors. And they even make elaborate pet costumes! Not that I would ever, ever buy something like that, that is completely crazy and nutso and only really weird people do that stuff.

beady pieces

2005-11-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

I finished the second sleeve of the beaded sweater from Vintage Knits on Inishmor, the biggest of the Aran Islands. We ended up staying there for 2 nights instead of one because it was so windy and stormy that they cancelled all the ferries. I waited to finish the sweater so that I could block it out since it seems a little short to me and I wanted to stretch it out a bit.

Here are all the pieces pinned out on my homemade blocking board that I made on Saturday night with the help of a staple gun, an iron, and a bottle of wine. It's a big piece of plywood with thick foam on top, and then some batting, and then white cotton fabric that I ironed a fusable grid thing to (I found it in the quilting section of Joann's). It works very well and I am happy with it. I have enough stuff to make another one the same size for when I have big things to block.

The poor sweater will have to wait for my needles to arrive from Ireland to be finished. It turns out that you can only knit on the plane on the way to Ireland, not on the way back. And since we were running so late that luggage couldn't be checked anymore, I had to leave my little baggie with a million needles and an almost finished tank top (from the cover of Vintage Knits) at the Dublin Airport. My wonderful aunt went and picked up the baggie and mailed it to me last Friday, so hopefully I will get my needles soon. All that's left to do after I attach the sleeves is to pick up stitches all around the neck and knit 5 rows of rib.

That damn bag again

2005-11-27T21:36:00.000-08:00

Almost everyone at stitching bitches has made the marsupial tote bag (minus the marsupial pouch part) from SnB. Some people are even on their fourth or fifth bag. And since many of us work on the same floor on campus, one of the professors said "if I see that damn bag one more time . . ." last time he saw one finished. I don't have pictures of everybody's, but here are a few:

clockwise: Sybille with her first two bags, Alexis with her first two bags (and a dashing scarf for her boyfriend), Erin with her bag (that she made a lining for too but you can't see it (and she made a really little version of the bag that she blocked with DVDs with the leftover yarn in the reverse colors)), and Christiane working on her first bag (and I've lost count of how many she's made since).

So I tried to branch away from the same old bag, but I attempted to make the "Letter Have It" bag for my sister from SnB Nation and it was too hard for me. I need to take a class on intarsia because I just didn't have the patience for it and it can't be that hard. So I gave up and made that damn bag again.

Keyser loves to provide scale for felting.

Erin brought over her sewing machine and helped me make a lining. And by helped I mean did it for me beautifully while I watched. I am excited to get a sewing machine and learn how to sew one of these days. I like the fabrics I picked out, especially the silly monkey fabric on the bottom that doesn't match. I sent it to my sister with the monkey in the picture.

I am very excited because she likes it a lot and actually uses it. And her best friend wants me to make her one too. I guess I'll have to get a sewing machine for Christmas so I can make the lining.

aw, diddums

2005-11-19T22:23:00.000-08:00

I got back from my long awaited vacation in Ireland on Wednesday night. 23 days of lovely relaxation. And lots of knitting and sightseeing and familyseeing. But most exciting, I have now completed an official marathon. Even though it was pouring for the first 2 hours and I felt really dizzy and weird for the last 3 miles, I had a really really great time. Before this marathon training started, I would never had imagined that running could be so much fun. And best of all, my dad flew to Dublin the day before the marathon and surprised me. I have never been more surprised in my whole life.

What a wonderful Daddy I have! And I must have had the biggest cheering section for any non-Irish runner. Look at my fan club! So many! Bryan took the AIDS marathon bus to miles 10 and 21 to cheer me on, and the rest of my family (my dad, my 2 aunts and uncles, 4 cousins, my dad's cousin and his wife and 2 of my second cousins) was at about 22.5, and I gave them each a kiss as I ran by. I can't thank them all enough for coming to cheer me on. October 31, 2005 was one of the best days of my life.

Unused cargo

2005-10-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

I meant to show the knitting I carried around for 85 miles in the last post, but I forgot. This bag weighed 1.2 pounds and I never even cast on. I brought all the yarn for the sweater because I figured in a week I could get a lot done, but I was so tired every night that I just opened the baggie and pet the yarn and then passed out in an exhaustion coma. Oh well.

6 skeins of fingering weight Frog Tree Alpaca, about 10 million glass beads, #2 and #3 circular needles, and the pattern. It's from Vintage Knits, and it was supposed to be for my mom's birthday, but I missed that, so now it is for Christmas instead. Here is the picture from the book:

I am not using the yarn that the pattern calls for because I couldn't find it. I don't have much of a start yet, and my ribbing looks a little weird. Hopefully that will be fixed when I block.

There are 900 beads in the finished sweater. I have never knit anything that uses beads. It is not really any different from no-bead knitting. But it looks more exciting. Here is a close up, and the colors look pretty close to real life.

backpackalooza/death march 2005, #2

2005-10-18T18:54:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my sweetie and I went on a 7 day backpacking trip in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. The longest backpacking trip I had been on before that was this January when we were in Costa Rica (6 days), but that was pretty cushy because every other day we camped at big ranger stations that had running water and toilets and cold showers (it was a million degrees with 99.99999% humidity most of the time, so cold showers were actually quite heavenly). This trip was definitely not cushy.

Our original route was almost 100 miles and included the Rae Lakes loop in Kings Canyon for the last 2 days, which is supposed to be really beautiful. But it rained most of the day on our third day, so we just waited in our (teeeeny) tent until it stopped, and because of that we had to cut out the pretty Rae Lakes at the end and we only went 85 miles. Only, hahahaha. We left our car in Sequoia at Crescent Meadow, and Bryan's parents picked us up at Road's End in Kings Canyon and drove us back to our car. Here is the route we took (you can click on it for a bigger picture). The orange line is our route and the little green triangles are supposed to be tents and mark where we camped.

We had an amazing time. Bryan has done most of the John Muir Trail through the Sierras, but I have only really been to Yosemite a few times. It was more beautiful than I could have imagined. Forrester Pass was my favorite part. It was really hard to see where the pass was going to be, and then all of a sudden you go almost straight up (more than 700 feet in 0.3 miles). Very dramatic. Bryan's pictures are much better than mine, you can see them here.

I thought with all my marathon training I would be breezing along, but my calculations did not take into account the crazy high altitude, our extremely heavy backpacks (around 40 pounds most of the time - 7 days of food weighs a lot!), strange intestinal distress that plagued me the whole time, or spraining my ankle almost exactly halfway through. And oh yes, uphillness and the gravity that hates me. I only fell once, which is far below my average of klutzy, and I only had one screaming crazy lady freakout (relating to the chance of lightning and crossing very high exposed passes). I didn't take very many pictures, but here are my favorites:

I loved this face that moss made on a big boulder. I thought it was so funny, but Bryan couldn't even see it. How can you not see that?

Here is some of the alpine glow that Bryan was trying so hard to capture the whole time. I had just got to the top of Kaweah Gap and was waiting for Bryan to catch up to me . He takes so many pictures that he is almost always behind me even though I am very very slow. The climb up to the gap was reeeeeally hard. I had my heart rate monitor on during most of the days while backpacking, and that day it told me I burned 9000 calories. That is insane. I was angry at that bitchy tall mountain as I was dragging my tired ass up it. When I got to the gap I peed on it, just to show it who was boss. Take that, Kaweah Gap.

I saw this doe on the fourth day. I was so close to her, and 2 of her deer friends ran away when I came around the corner, but she just sat there and stared at me. Maybe she could sense my peaceful nature.

This is Junction Meadow. It was our last day, and we were having fun going slow and finding things for Bryan to take pictures of. I'm good at spotting things for him. I found what looked like two dragonflies mating flying around, and Bryan tried to take pictures of them for a while, and then he realized that it was only one dragonfly and it was molting so its whole old exoskeleton was hanging from its head. It was flying around all crazy trying to get it to come off. It finally did, in a pile of old horse poop, and that's what Bryan is looking for in this picture.

We did not find it, but we did find a ladybug. Pretty ladybug.

We hiked along Bubb's Creek for most of the last day. Here is my sweetie putting on dry socks. Ah, what a nice vacation we had. Now I'm almost ready for the next one in Ireland on Monday.

rest in peace, Mulligan

2005-10-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

My parents' dog Mulligan died today after a stroke. He was the best dog ever. We got him when I was 14, and he was 14 years old. He was such a good dog that I'm sure he's having a ball in dog heaven right now, looking down at us and wondering why we're all so sad. Oh Mulligan, we miss you so much. Thanks for being such a wonderful dog.

What a fast runner!

This was taken when i was a senior in high school. What a clean room I used to have. And too bad I don't still have those lovely tie-dyed demin shorts.

I am now officially a runner.

2005-10-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

Observers might say "fast shuffler" as opposed to "runner", but whatever. Week 22 of the 26 month marathon training was last Saturday, and we ran a "practice" marathon. Which was the same distance as a "real" marathon, 26.2 miles. Holy cow. I never thought I would be able to go that far. Now we just have three more 8 mile runs on the next three Saturdays, and then it's the marathon in Ireland. It seemed so far away in April when the training started! And now it is almost Halloween. Here is a picture of my goup at the finish (Bryan's mom and dad and sister came up to cheer me on! And they took some pictures for me. It was very very nice of them and gave me a big boost at mile 15. Thanks guys!). I'm wearing the orange hat. And the picture is small on purpose because running attire is not very flattering unless you are a stick person.

It was a very emotional experience, as many marathon runners I know told me it would be. From mile 24 on I was pretty much a big sobby crybaby. It felt so good to have worked so hard to train and to raise money for a good cause. And speaking of raising money, I'm still doing it - you can sponsor me by clicking here. And for those of you waiting for some bribery, my sweetie has generously offered to send prints of his beautiful pictures if you sponsor me. Here are all the deails and directions to follow to get your pretty pictures. Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me so far and supported me through all this training!

2005-10-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

I just added Haloscan commenting. It's hard to know what to do about replying to comments, do you do it in the comments section? Which is kind of silly because then the person who left the comment has to keep checking the entry to see if you replied to the comment. I've left comments on blogs that use Haloscan and then the people just reply by writing me an email, which I think makes more sense. Yay for Haloscan!

I love my Mommy!

2005-10-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Isn't my mom beautiful? I'm sure she will be thrilled that I am showing her picture to the entire internets. But it could be worse, I could be telling the internets how old she is too. This picture is from Christmas and she was modeling her "rocks" that my dad gave her as her Christmas present. Happy Birthday, Mommy! I love you!

(edited to add: So much complaining about the nice picture! Ok, here is my favorite picture of me and my mom. Taken in June 1978. So cute!)

busy bitches

2005-10-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

Stitching bitches has become very populated lately, yay for knitting and socializing! Every week I take lots of pictures but then I am too lazy to post them because I am a lazor. But now I will post all of them in one ginormous blog entry. Or maybe not. This last Monday we had 14 people (including me). That's a lot of stitching going on. And we used to be very focused on the stitching and neglectful of the bitching, but we have gotten better. I had to stand in the middle of the room to take these pictures facing both ways because I couldn't fit everyone in one picture.

It is wonderful to see all the different things everyone is making, and when people come in with new yarns and new patterns I get to pet and smell and love the yarns and it is almost like I bought them myself and that makes me happy. And makes me buy less random yarns. And that makes my sweetie happy. And since only one other stitcher has a blog (Mrs. Erin), then I can take pictures and post about them and feel like I am more productive somehow. I provided a creative environment to foster their production, right? Right. So on that note, here is Zain holding up his lovely very long scarf he knit from Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Chunky based on the pattern in Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It is very long.

It is his very first finished item! Yay for Zain!

On Monday I also got a present from Holly. She got him at Cost Plus. He is our new stitching bitches mascot and he is oh so soft.

Mr. Al Paca

I like to play with my food.

2005-10-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

Mr. Apple Swan

the tale of the happy yarn

2005-10-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, Heather dyed some lovely lopi yarn that her grandmother gave her. The hand-dyed yarn was beautiful, and she put it up for sale on the internets for the world to see. Jennifer was the first person to buy any of Heather's hand-dyed masterpieces, and she flew all the way to Portland, Oregon to pick up the yarn.

Then the beautiful yarn languished sadly under Jennifer's coffee table, in a big basket with lots of other yarns, but none of them were as pretty as Heather's yarn. Jennifer couldn't decide what to make out of the yarn, and she would have probably made some horrible felted thing out of it and all the colors would have muddied together.

But then one day, Christiane came to Stitching Bitches at Jennifer's house on a Monday night, and as soon as she saw the yarn she was so excited about it because she thought it was the most beautiful yarn she had ever seen. Jennifer remembered this when Christiane's birthday came up many weeks later, and decided that Christiane would love the yarn so much, that she would turn it into something stupendous.

And Christiane did. After much thinking about what would show off the beautifulness of the yarn the best, she made a long scarf in fisherman's rib. The yarn made perfect stripes on both ends, and a very pleasing pooling swirliness in the center, just like it was always meant to be knit into this exact scarf. And the yarn lived very happily ever after, showing the world how wonderful it was every day (well, every day that it's cold enough to wear a scarf).

The end.

A second helping of kitty pi

2005-08-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

How is it August already? The summer is just flying by. Soon the undergrads will be back to make it all crowded on campus and take all the parking spots. I've been knitting quite a bit, just too lazy to blog. I'm much better at reading other people's blogs than writing on my own. Mwah, mwah, knitblogland!

I knit another kitty bed from Wendy's kitty bed pattern. I modified the pattern to make it bigger for Keyser Soze (a.k.a. Big Fat Whitey) and to make the sides higher. I used many bright colors of Lamb's Pride Bulky. Here is Tim caught in the giant prefelted version:

So big! I love felting things. I taped lots of towels around our bear canister to make the shape to block it. I bribed the kittens to pose for this picture with cat treats on the top of the bed. They are little piggies.

It turned out pretty well, except the sides are a little too tall and I was too lazy to weave in the ends because I figured i could just cut them off after felting but they turned into big giant knobbly knots that can't really be cut off without cutting a hole in the bed. Whoops. Lesson learned about being lazy with the weaving ends in. But Keyser doesn't seem to mind.

28 is great!

2005-07-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

my birthday was last week (the 23rd). i love my birthday. everyone is nice to me and i get lovely presents. and my wonderful husband always makes me something yummy. this year it was strawberry ice cream with the ice cream maker i gave hime for his birthday. this was the 13th birthday of mine that he has spoiled me. what a lucky girl i am.

here is the swift he gave me, in the middle of winding some of the yarn i dyed when i was at heather's house in March. i love the swift.

and my housemate printed out and framed some really really nice pictures of my cats for me. he made them black and white except for their eyes. i'm not sure if it shows up in the picture very well, but it looks neat. i put them up above my desk in my lab. between bryan and brian and me my cats must be the most photographed cats on the planet.

bryan also gave me a new zen micro MP3 player in my favorite color. it is tiny. i have to figure out how to knit it a little scratch protector. bryan has the red one, and i tried to make a cover already but it came out too small so i'll have to give it another try soon.

the school server i usually put my pictures on seems to have eaten all of my pictures, so i'm trying out the new blogger picture thing. i hope it works.

stitching bitches and lab pet silliness

2005-06-10T19:57:00.000-07:00

after many many weeks of cancellations, we had stitching bitches night at my house on monday. knitting and talking and pizza and snacks. t'was quite a lovely evening. a montage:

on the left is Carolyn modeling the ribbon xback that i finished. it is for my sister, and i think that i'll have to shorten the straps because it's a little low on the sides, and there might be some boobage issues. my sister should be coming to visit me soon, so i'm going to wait until we figure out the fit before i darn in all the ends (although it makes for a lovely asymmetric fringe). i used 4 and a half balls of Crystal Palace Deco-Ribbon in Strawberry Soda, and number 11 needles. my gauge was a little too big, so i cast on for the medium instead of the large because i had read on the internets that it comes out a little big. so it is about a medium and a half.

on the right is Carolyn working on her first non-dishcloth project, legwarmers in purple with red stripes. she has a wacky way of knitting, so i didn't really teach her as much as let her read my knitting books a while ago, and we discovered that she twists all of her knit stitches. but now she knows the right way. she refuses to frog out the legwarmer and knit it correctly, so now she has to concentrate and do it the wrong way. crazy Carolyn.

in the middle is Erin working on her Baby's First Tattoo sweater from SnB Nation, and she brought her neighbor Gigi to join out group as well. Gigi was swatching for the cabled newsboy cap in SnB Nation. i think it was a little overwhelming for her to knit with so many people at once, but she wants to come back next week so that means she had fun.

and on the bottom right is Team Ballwinder, Erin and my housemate Brian. they are definitely going to have to practice if they want to wind balls in the competitive circuit. Brian has been very excited about the ballwinder since i got it, but that's because i demonstrated its power to him by winding yarn that was already in a center pull ball into a new ball. the whole "holding a skein out between your forearms and trying not to let the yarn get tangled into the biggest knot in the universe" part of the operation was not clear to him. and he is the most impatient person in the planet, so you can imagine how big the knot was. oh well, the swift i have requested from my sweetie for my birthday should make him excited to wind all of our skeins into balls on monday nights.

on to lab pet news . . . i got a shrimp! his name is Gerald. he is so neat to watch! and he has made me want to stop pillaging the sea for shrimps because he is such a wonderful little creature. it is hard to take a picture of him in the tank - here is one of him being shy:

maybe Bryan can get a better picture next week with his fancy-schmancy camera. today was also excitement with the lab pets (can you tell we never get any work done?) because Sally brought in zebrafish (the model organism she used to work on as a graduate student) to feed the axolotls. we all watched while the axolotls figured out it was a swimming food party. they are happy. the fish, however, are most likely not as happy. Bryan keeps squeaking "help me" in a tiny voice when he walks by my desk, but they were extra in the lab they were in, so the other option for them is down a garbage disposal, which sounds equally not as happy.

[side note: just when i was thinking we have too many lab pets now (2 hamsters, 3 axolotls, and many inhabitants of a fish tank), the older female axolotls in the tank are starting to look suspiciously fat and bloated. and upon further examination of the new little guy i put in there (mature now) that i thought was a female . . . i could soon have 300 more lab pets to clean up poop after.]

while careful observations were being made about the interaction between axolotls and zebrafish, a postdoc in the lab tried to make someone take up a bet with him that he could reach into the tank and grab a zebrafish by the tail and pull it out. this postdoc is a little crazy, and remarkably quick, it turns out. so cynthia bet him that he couldn't do it, and if he could, she would eat it. well, you know what happened, or i wouldn't be writing about it. yuck. she just swallowed it so she wouldn't have to chew it. and i missed the whole thing because i went to get my car smog checked but all the places i could find were closing so they wouldn't do it. damn california.

a present and some puppies

2005-06-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

i finished the ChicKnits mondocable shell i was making for my mom for mother's day. i had to finish it while i was in phoenix visiting, but at least i got to give it to her before i left. here she is modeling it:

i used 4 skeins of Plymouth Yarn "Fantasy Naturale", which is 100% cotton. it's knit on #9 needles, so it came out thicker than i was imagining, but i'm still happy with it, and don't think it will be too hot for crazy Phoenix weather. this is the biggest project i've finished since i started knitting. and i learned how to do mattress stitch.

while in phoenix i also got to meet my parents' new puppies for the first time. they are scottish deerhounds, and they are only 7 months old and GINORMOUS. their names are Alex and Malachy.

and here they are again with a little chocolate lab puppy for scale.

things that have made me happy lately

2005-05-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

it is such a pretty day today! i love living here. it makes me happy. here are some other things that make me happy.

i have found the most artificial beverage in the universe, and it is delightful. i don't like dr. pepper, so i guess it's strange that i like this. i think it has to do with it being made mostly of red #40 and i looove red #40. it is like crack. yum.

this is fluffy, a ten year old toy poodle who belongs to the last man on my meals on wheels route. he thinks he is a very large and ferocious dog, but he is actually tiny and harmless. i took pictures of fluffy a few weeks ago and brought a print to his owner last week when i delivered his lunch. he was so happy with it!

i recently found out that there will be a new Tim Burton stop motion animation film (like the Nightmare Before Christmas) coming out on September 23rd. here is the trailer. i can't wait to see it!

this was a surprise present from my friend Sally this week to wear when i run. it is beautiful and i love it. she said she thought of me when she saw it because of the color and to help keep the sun out of my eyes, because a few weeks ago i had to go to the eye center with red spots on my eyes, which turned out to be pigeuculas. sounds fancy, but just means a callous on your eye. you can get them from being in the sun too much without sunglasses (or a hat) or when there are a lot of allergens in the air. i am very good at getting crazy eye problems lately. (don't click these if you don't like eyeball pictures).

it made my legs very happy today to be in the freezing cold pacific ocean after running 7 miles through Golden Gate Park. such a pretty day!

pretty, pretty french yarn

2005-05-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

thank you so much Annabel! my wonderful secret pal sent me a third package last week, full of beautiful orange and red yarn!

8 balls of Phildar "plaisance". it's a 50% cotton, 50% acrylic yarn. the colors are so perfect for me! i was wearing a red shirt and an orange shirt when i opened this package! sorry about the bad picture, it was very sunny out when i took it. there was also a Phildar pattern book, a really pretty card, and two very cute flip-flop stitch markers that Annabel made herself! i am so lucky! here is a closeup of the stitch markers and of the zippered tank that i might make for myself out of the yarn:

thanks so much, Annabel! merci beaucoup!

my secret pal is a french knitting goddess! and a little knitting.

2005-05-10T23:47:00.000-07:00

secret pal 4 is now officially over, so my mystery pal has been revealed: it was Annabel from France! she just emailed me yesterday, so i have not had time to stalk her blog thoroughly yet (or learn French), but it is quite apparent that she is a wonderful knitter! i wish the google translate program worked a little better - the translation isn't very good, although i think i can get a rough idea. Thank you so much for the presents, Annabel! she has sent me one more package, but it hasn't gotten here yet - maybe it will be on my back porch tonight when i get home.

bewteen working and doing marathon training, i haven't been able to get a lot of knitting in lately. i am slowly progressing on my mom's present - i am almost up to the armhole decreases. my mom bought me tickets to come and visit her in two weeks, so that's my deadline for finishing. i'm pretty sure i can do it.

and now diet coke comes in a splenda version! i tried it today and it is so good!

they grow up so fast

2005-05-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

on sunday my kittens officially became cats by turning a year old. i decided that their birthday was May 1st because i found them last year on June 6th and the vet said they were about 5 weeks old. they were so cute! not that they're any less cute now, just bigger and more spoiled.

the hardest hat ever and some other silly stuff

2005-04-30T23:58:00.000-07:00

before christmas, i tried to make the brioche hat in Weekend Knitting for my sweetie at least 15 times before i gave up. my biggest problem was that after doing the two color cast-on, the stitches didn't really have a defined bottom, so almost every time i joined to make the hat in the round, i twisted it. and then i couldn't tell for a few rows, so it was really annoying. and the couple times i managed to join it without twisting, i didn't end up with the right number of stiches. so i gave up and made things for everyone else except my wonderful husband. what a mean bitch of a wife i am.

i should have known from the description at the beginning of the pattern, "a lot of serious knitters believed it couldn't be done - that is, brioche stitch in the round," that i was way too bad of a knitter to be able to make this. but i am stubborn. and bryan made me feel guilty for not making it for him. so, for his birthday this past monday, i tried to make it again. i figured out a trick to help me join - i cast on with the two colors in the hat and also held a different color yarn underneath those two so that i could tell where the bottom was. but then when i switched to bigger needles after 3 inches i screwed something up and i couldn't figure out how to fix it because brioche stitch is complicated and i am dumb. so i had to rip it all out.

i almost decided that bryan would get this hat when he was as old as the salty old man in the picture in the pattern, who for some reason makes me think of a sailor and the ocean.

but i perservered, and i managed to finish the hat two days after his birthday with only one side of the decreases looking asstastic. but i'm pretty sure i could make another hat witout making any mistakes now that i know how it works.

let's look at a closeup of this gorgeous hat!

another present i gave bryan was a very strange little cat on a crocheted doily that i bought from a crazy person on telegraph. it looks dead. i put it in the hamster cage and lady avalache attacked it.

and last saturday we made dinner with erin because we wanted to go to pasta pomodoro at 10:45 when they closed at 11, but then they closed early so we missed our yummy dinner. and we had to make dinner instead so we ate at 1 am. but it was yummy. we had four cheese pasta with tomato and basil made from a recipe from America's Test kitchen. we also made mashed sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli with a basil vinagrette from the america's test kitchen book that heather gave bryan for christmas. bryan looooooooves america's test kitchen. mwah mwah, richard kimble!

a happy hat wearer and pets

2005-04-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

dave is very happy with his hat. although i was crushed by his decision to join another lab. poor me. here is a picture of him that doesn't show the hat very well.

today i let the cats go outside and enjoy the jungle grass in our front yard. they had lots of fun. see, this is why i don't mow my lawn.

and i found a way to get even with the really mean hamster who likes my blood (lady avalanche) - hamster torture. if i lodge a chew biscuit (hard thing that feels like it's made of coral or something, but is supposed to help them grind their teeth down and have some nutritional value) in the bars of the cage, she'll chew it like a crazy possessed demon hamster until she either can pull it through or it falls down to the floor. if i just open the cage and give her one, she runs off and puts it in the food stash tube area of the hamster paradise. which is where she goes to deposit the chewed up biscuit that she stores in her cheek puches once she gets it out of the cage bars. yick. crazy rodents.

a mad hatter

2005-04-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

it's been hat mania for me lately. i love making hats. on monday during stitching bitches i made one for my friend Dave (who might join my lab, i hope i hope i hope) in the brightest baby blue-sky blue cotton yarn ever.

first i made a gauge swatch in the shape of a hat only to discover it was ginormous. whoops. so then i made it again, and it fits my head, which is about the same size as Dave's - giant. i hope he likes it (i warned him it was crazy bright).

here is Hunter wearing the seaman's cap i made him out of Elsebeth Lavold angora (and trying to do a James Dean impression (and i should mention this is the smartest person in my graduate class - he is about to graduate (less than 4 years after we started (bastard)))). he likes it.

i am also making two other hats that i screwed up on a bunch but now i have them figured out (i think). i need to take pictures of their little hat beginnings.

in non-hat related knitting, i bought some cotton yarn to make my mom (don't click this, mom) this for mother's day. the color didn't come out that great in the picture, but it is a nice soft light green.

and i know everyone hates pictures of people's cats, but bryan took this one yesterday and i like it lots. and it shows all the work i did painting the tiles in our bathroom.

crap-o-tee

2005-04-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

i stayed up all night last wednesday thinking that i could finish my clapotis, and i finished knitting all the yarn i had. but this is what i was left with:

urrggh. yes, a 98% finished clapotis. and since i hand-dyed the yarn, that means i have to order more andean silk from knitpicks and try and dye about 10 more yards the same approximate colors. i was considering just finishing it with lambs pride bulky in purple just to show it who's the boss, but i decided against that.

the reason i ran out is that heather and i are lazy estimators - each skein of the yarn in the pattern (for rich people) is 100g and has 205 yards - the andean silk has 97 yards in a 50g ball, which is about half, so we decided 6 skeins of andean silk was equal to 3 skeins of lorna's laces lion and lamb. uh, no. the 33 yard difference plus the fact that my gauge was slightly off meant that i had to do fewer of the straight section repeats, which i figured out early enough, but then i was greedy and tried to squeeze out 9 repeats instead of 8. bad, bad, greedy knitter. the kittens are disgusted.

in happier knitting news, a hat i made for christmas for bryan's boss's son is now one of his favorite things (he wouldn't even put it on when i gave it to him). he refused to go to sleep the other night until he had it in his crib with him. his dad left me a very cute picture of him wearing it recently on my desk in an envelope marked "for your blog". he is the cutest little boy ever.

alone in a hotel room with han and the clap

2005-04-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

i'm back from san diego now, but didn't get a chance to post this picture while i was there. i cast on for clapotis last week with the yarn i dyed when i was visiting heather. i like how it knits up, and i am constantly amazed by the fact that i made it, not that it was hard, but i'm still impressed with myself. han insisted on taking pictures of me in my pyjamas with the clap progress, and i was too tired to argue.

i hope to be done pretty soon, so i will post a more close-up picture then. and i didn't realize how crazy all the fabric was in the hotel room. maybe that's why i had all those dreams about big flowers trying to eat me.

booty to make seamen happy

2005-03-30T23:55:00.000-08:00

i finished another birthday present - another seaman's cap, this one for my friend hunter in navy blue yummy elsbeth lavold angora. i made the size small this time since when i made the medium for rupesh it was actually size giant because the yarn is a little thicker than worsted. gauge, schmauge. and i know i've already posted a picture of rupesh wearing his hat, but since it took me 5 whole weeks to accomplish the difficult task of weaving in the ends, i thought i would show it again.

i am blogging live from lovely san diego, where i am at the yawn-a-thon that is the annual fruit fly conference. the highlight of my day so far was when i gave han the giggles during the keynote lecture and we couldn't stop shaking with silent laughter for what seemed like hours while a nobel prize winner explained her exciting science. good times.

my secret pal is wonderful!

2005-03-28T14:41:00.000-08:00

my secret pal sent me a lovely orange-themed package from France this week. i've been so busy that i haven't had time to post about it, but it made me so happy! such a nice present, and just when i needed it the most because these last few weeks have been craaaazy. she sent me some nice dark orange wool yarn, a very cute little orange pen and orange highlighter, some orange jam, some orange candies, a case for my glasses (which is perfect because i just lost the one that came with my new glasses! and did you knit this for me, secret pal? i think you did - it's so beautiful! thank you so much!), and 3 little cat toys that my kitties looove (so much so that i could only find two to take a picture of because they have hidden one from me). thanks so much, secret pal!

(and sorry for all the paranthetical paragraphs - i'm a little tired).

hamster palace move and extension

2005-03-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

my boss finally noticed the hamsters last week, only because my labmate was holding a new bright orange hamster ball and waiting for me to put the hamster in and he walked up to my desk. he asked that i move them into the lunchroon instead of on my desk, so i'm kind of sad that they're far away, but at least he let me keep them in the lab. i bought them each a hamster ball, and some new tunnels and an external wheel that you can connect up to the tunnel network. i have two happy hamsters.

and the nobel prize in craftiness goes to

2005-03-18T19:24:00.000-08:00

the inventor of this spectacular new pom-pom maker i bought at article pract just before i went to portland. it is soooooooo neat! i forgot to take a picture of the box, but it is made by clover and the instructions are in japanese. instead of having to cut sections of yarn and thread them through a pom-pom donut template (which can take a very long time if you want a big pom-pom), there are two half-circles that you can wrap with yarn very quickly (and you never have to cut the yarn until you're done winding) and then snap together. here is what it looks like:

clockwise, from top left:
the 4 different sized pom-pom makers that came in the box
yellow acrylic yarn wrapped around both halves of the biggest size (took about 5 minutes)
the two halves snap together, then you cut around the outside and tie the middle
and the main body of the chick is the pom-pom! the chick's head is made from the green circle.

so i discovered the joys of pom-pom making with this amazing device on wednesday while waiting for the dryer repair man to show up and fix our recently replaced dryer so i wouldn't have to go to Launder Land again. he was supposed to be there at 10:30, but he didn't get there until 1:30. had i known i would have 3 hours, i would have done something substantial like clean our tornado aftermath of a bedroom. but instead i made a pom-pom, then another, then made them both into a cute little chick, and then spent about an hour and a half taking pictures of the chick with the cats. i am way too easily amused.

and here's a trivia question for today: what is this?

if you guessed a decomposing watermelon that's been in our fridge for 6 weeks, you win!

stitching bitches (now with MSG!)

2005-03-16T22:16:00.000-08:00

we stitched and bitched and ate chinese food on monday night.

clockwise from upper left:
alexis, erin, and alexa on the couch knitting very intently (and carolyn's head)
giovanna seaming up her hat with tim looking on
carolyn takes a break from her fancy dishcloth
me working on ribby's first sleeve

we missed the bitchers this week - they all had more important bitching to do elsewhere. we had occasional lapses into silent concentration, but we're getting better.

and here's some of our progress
erin's big bad baby blanket is almost halfway done!
carolyn's first two completed knitting projects
lloyd is so cute - but didn't get any knitting done
giovanna's hat! almost complete except for the crocheting, which she learned how to do from the crocheters in the group.

ribby progress and screw-ups

2005-03-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

i finished both front pieces of ribby while i was in portland. so now i have the front and back done. there's not a very exciting way to take a picture of this, though.

i also realized from looking at heather's ribby-in-progress that i am an idiot and did the decreases for the armholes wrong on all three pieces. at least i'm consistent. instead of always knitting 2 on the right side and purling 2 on the wrong side before the decrease, i did whatever would line up with the ribbing on the wrong side but always knit 2 on the right side. so it looks bumpy and weird. but i've accepted my failure and am going to keep it like this. yay for laziness!

hamster mania!

2005-03-16T01:50:00.000-08:00

i got two baby dwarf hamsters last week from a professor across the hall. they were just weaned. two girls, which i have named Lady Avalanche and Dame Scribble (their names are silly and lab-related). you can follow the adventures of their two brothers here at erin's blog. last week i went and bought them a hamster palace. assembling it took some brain power.

cynthia saw it and said, "it's so, i don't know, over the top." and i thought she knew me enough to expect that already.

it took them a day to get used to their hamster paradise and start using the tunnels, but now they run around everywhere. i'll have to go get more tunnels. and a ball to put them in and let them run around the lab. maybe then my boss will notice them since somehow the muticolored plastic monstrosity on my desk has not attracted his attention yet.

they look exactly the same, and i tried using sharpie to mark one so i could tell them apart but it turns out they're always cleaning themselves so that didn't last long. to help me out, starting yesterday one of them has been very mean and biting me and other people that try to handle her. she's a little bit bigger than the other nice cute one that doesn't latch on with fangs and draw blood. so the bitey one is lady avalanche and the nice one is dame scribble. i hope lady avalanche gets nicer and stops biting but at least i can tell them apart now. that's dame scribble that i'm holding.

a fancy-schmancy new bike!

2005-03-14T13:55:00.000-08:00

i've been wanting a new bike for a while, since mine has shifters on the frame of the bike instead of up at the handlebars (and i am clutzy and not graceful so shifting is difficult). we got our rei dividend a few weeks ago, which means we can use it to buy something and get 20% off, so that means a new bike for me!

isn't she lovely? the color is listed as "butter yellow", so i named her mrs. butters. here is all her information for anyone that cares about bikes. she is a sweet ride. i went for my first not-just-to-school-and-back bike ride with her yesterday. bryan asked if i wanted to go up, to which i stupidly replied, "yes! yay!" (not that there is much choice around where we live) oh, did we go up. we went up a street that's at about a 60 degree incline. really. no exaggeration. ok, maybe a slight exaggeration. but it was HARD. and then i took a little spill because it's really hard to get up and going on a bike again at such a crazy incline after you stop to let your leg muscles cool down from being on fire. so we went all the way up to grizzly peak road, which is waaay high, and then stopped at the Lawrence Hall of Science by LBNL (gorgeous view! i wish i had brought my camera!) and then came down centennial. that was also very scary because i was going about 30 miles an hour WITH my brakes clamped on. scary scary. but also fun! yay for bike rides!

oregon is wonderful!

2005-03-12T00:54:00.000-08:00

i went to visit heather on sunday. oregon is just as lovely as i imagined it would be. she picked me up from the airport and then we drove to a nice beach house. we took the dogs to the beach for a walk. they really like the beach. here's a picture of them (pre hideous dog-chomping fight because franklin is a dumb fight-picker).

before dinner, i gave heather a present of a garnishing book and kit, and we had fun with some produce. garnishing is hard! we made apple swans, cheese ducks, cucumber links, and a tomato rose. notice how the crackers say "water" on them! such a coordinated garnishing scene! patrick and his friend tim demolished it quickly.

on monday we went crabbing, which turned out to be much more work than i was envisioning. we had fun, but only managed to catch 4 males that were big enough to keep. here they are in their bucket:

and here's oscar playing with our yummy lunch.

on tuesday the weather was very clear, and we went walking on the beach again.

when we got back to the house, we dyed yarn with lots and lots of different colors. we had 18! i haven't taken a picture yet of the yarn.

here's heather laying out the yarn for dyeing. doesn't our pot of yarn look like spagetti?

delayed stitching bitches pictures

2005-03-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

i am waaaay behind in posting some pictures of our stitching bitches meeting last monday. since we were to focused on our stitching and very quiet for our first meeting, i decided to take drastic measures and call in the professional bitchers. needless to say, the bitching was top notch.

clockwise from upper left:
serious stitchers alexa, giovanna, and erin on the couch
erin, neil, erin, and anosha eating ice cream and bitching
one of the martini glass creations by neil and anosha
neil really likes it when i take pictures

and everyone was very productive! the one knitter whose work i didn't get a picture of was giovanna, because she had just then cast on for a hat.

clockwise from upper left:
erin's big bad baby blanket
erin's lovely fun yarn scarf
erin's first heel!
alexa's first hat!

strawberry progress

2005-03-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

not much to report on my crazy person craft project. last saturday we went to beverly's craft store in san jose (a really neat store packed with crafty goodness!) and picked up some netting to fill the strawberries with, some lyrca fabric to make the strawberry swim suit, and some fabric paint to paint the seeds on (which should take much less time than trying to sew on seeds cut out of fabric). i managed to blow up the pattern to life-size and cut it out of fancy griddy fabric.

bryan's mom and i managed to cut out the pieces and the batting for two sample strawberry quarters, but we ran into some sleepy problems when we tried to sew them together at midnight. we'll try to make some more progress this coming weekend.

a kitten and a baby hamster

2005-03-05T23:07:00.000-08:00

yesterday i went over to check on a friend's cats while she was away. she has two, and one is a kitten. he is a little puffy rolly-polly ball of affection. and he really likes the yarn i'm using for my ribby cardi.

and here is one of the baby hamsters that a professor across the hall is trying to find a home for - she said i could have two to put on my desk. yay for lab pets! i'll have to do some massive reorganization of my lab space to fit them in.

spring has sprung

2005-03-05T20:01:00.000-08:00

i bought these cookies for han on thursday at a bakery by campus that has really yummy things. i wanted to get her one of the really big sugar cookies that they make with lots of frosting and a smiley face on them, but they said all their sugar cookies are springy/easter now. a sure sign that spring is here. han said the cookies were very buttery and yummy. cute and tasty!

exciting new orange glasses

2005-03-03T05:23:00.000-08:00

i cannot put into words how much i love the color orange. so when i was at the eye center a few weeks ago with my eye problems, i went a little crazy after finding a pair of orange frames. and they finally got here on monday. yay for orange! here are pictures of the old and the new glasses.

and han loves me too!

2005-03-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

han went to the city yesterday for a seminar and bought me a lovely candle with shamrocks on it during her after-seminar shopping expedition. it really spruces up my lab bench!

who loves me?

2005-02-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

bryan does! he bought me this lovely case to protect the digital camera that is now officially my blog camera since his is a million times better. i had the camera in this big clunky camera bag, so this is much nicer. it's like a little camera wetsuit.

and i finished Rupesh's hat today, but then i was worried because it seemed way too big (it fit me and i have a huge melon head). i went upstairs to have him try it on so i could see if i'd have to rip it out and do it again smaller. he was very surprised and liked it a lot. and he likes the way it fits. yay! now i just have to weave in all the ends and give it back to him. i couldn't decide which picture to put up because in the one that's actually in focus he doesn't look happy. so i'm putting them both up.

soft yarn and strange pets

2005-02-24T15:57:00.000-08:00

right before stitching bitches on Monday, i went to a LYS (the one i don't like because of their ridiculous pricing methods ((but it was monday, so the one i like wasn't open)) with erin. while she was getting yarn for her fancy footies, i got some yarns for my secret pal and some yarn to make my friend Rupesh a hat. it's his birthday on saturday. he likes fancy clothes, so i got him a fancy yarn. i only glanced at the label when i bought it (i was mainly focusing on color) and i thought is was alpaca, but it's really angora. Elsbeth Lavold angora - 60% angora, 20% wool, 20% polyamid. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. it's so soft! i loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove it! i want to make a pillowcase out of it so i can feel it everyday. but then i'll drool all over its loveliness. maybe i'll make it anyway.

i'm making the plain old boring seaman's cap for Rupesh. hopefully he's not like heather (who starts to get sweaty when she just thinks about angora) and likes the fluffy softness.

and here are my strange lab pets. They are called axolotls and you can learn about them here. i don't do any research on them - they are living happy stress-free lives just as pets. i have two big ones in a tank that heather raised from babies and a small one that is a progeny of the big ones. you can't tell the sex until they are about a year old, so i don't know what the little one is yet. the two big ones are girls. i managed to give away the ones i had, and then heather left and now i have taken in her orphaned axolotls. aren't they next looking? the hairy stuff around their heads is their gills. if the little one turns out to be a boy, i can make more and then send them to people in secret pal packages. wouldn't that be a surprise!

hiding behind the natural plant life.

there's nothing for scale here, but she's about 8 inches long.

the little guy!

the first meeting of the stitching bitches

2005-02-22T12:14:00.000-08:00

last night the world's newest knitting group was born. yay for monday nights! but probably 40 new groups have starting meeting since then. i'm calling it stitching bitches because when i was first talking about a stitch n' bitch, bryan misheard me and thought i was saying stitching bitches. here is a montage to commemorate our first meeting.

clockwise from top left:

alexis, trying to swatch uselessly because i didn't hear her correctly and her yarn is too chunky to get down to the gauge she needed, even though i kept throwing smaller and smaller needles at her to keep swatching, poor alexis

erin, sticthing away productively on her quilted pillow cover (which she has talked about in some more detail here).

alexa, starting to cast on for her first hat, the hot head pattern from stitch n' bitch but with different yarn. but then she cast on for the small size because she was ignoring those pesky numbers in parentheses, so she ripped out the first few rows and is now going to ask her friend for her head circumference before she casts on again.

carolyn, learning how to knit with some big needles and fat yarn. she is a crocheter, so she started doing something crazy with the yarn with her left hand so after a while i just had her read out of the book to teach herself. i guess this is what continental knitting looks like. she made a lovely sample swatch with garter stitch, stockinette stitch, different widths of ribbing, and seed stitch. i should have taken a picture of it before we ripped it out.

erin, starting to work on her first pair of socks, these fancy footies. i have made one pair as well and can attest that the heel is confusing. but soon she will be a champion sock knitter!

as you can see, being the productive scientists that we are, we got right to work stitching, but the bitching suffered as a result. next week we'll have to drink more wine and let out some of our pent-up anger.

here's what the cats were doing:

giant strawberries and feline destructors

2005-02-21T00:36:00.000-08:00

yesterday i spent the entire day down in san jose with bryan's parents. i finally went to a master's swim meet last saturday, and i got a wonderful idea while i was there to make two big mascot suits for me and my friend dave to wear while we cheer on people from our team. our team is from the strawberry canyon pool just above the UC Berkeley campus, so i thought that our mascots should be giant swimsuit-wearing strawberries. (the only one you can buy online is here. it is ugly and expensive, although heather likes mr. strawberry's moustache). since bryan's mom is crafty, i enlisted her help in making these sure-to-be-wonderful suits.

we bought all the fabric to make them at wal-mart and joann's. i picked a shiny polester red for the outside panels, and a duller but same color red cotton-polyester blend for the panels that you can't see. the green is for the strawberry top and i haven't decided on the color for the seeds so i'll have to buy that later. after much consideration, i decided on a design suggested to me by my labmate sally. each strawberry will be made up of 4 quarters, which will be 4-sided pillows lined with batting and stuffed with either polyfill or netting to keep the shape. velcro will hold the pieces together and my arms will stick out between the quarters on both sides.

this all sounds lovely, but trying to design the panel shapes so everything will work out that way was another matter. i made a small scale model first, and i still have to fix the big panel so that it curves at the top and the bottom where the inside panel will be curving so that there is a place for me to be in the middle. i don't think any of these desciptions are going to help anyone imagine this, but hopefully it will only take a few more weekends to see if my design works.

here is bryan's mom showing off her speedy midnight sewing skills (and bryan's dad made us a yummy dinner of shimp pasta. thanks to both of you for a great day!) we made two models of the quarter and i'm pretty sure from holding them together that this will work. you'll just have to take my word for it because i know that they look like two halloween ghosts trying to make out. we're going to line the panels with thick batting on the inside when we sew them together, and perhaps also with posterboard for the inside one to help keep the shape. i just stuffed the little models with polyfill so they're not acting the way the big ones will when we make them for real (i think). i'm excited to see if it works.

another exciting find at joann's was this orange furry fabric that bryan's mom bought for me to cover some pillows with. it is so neon! i love it. we'll probably cover them next weekend during a break from the strawberry madness.

and it turns out that i wasn't the only busy one on saturday. when i woke up today, look what a sad sight i found waiting in my baby hat and sock yarn:

two of my five number six dpns ruined. i wonder who could have done that?

the most ridiculous song in the universe

2005-02-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

bryan discovered the funniest not-supposed to be funny song EVER yesterday. it's R. Kelly's In the Kitchen. you should go find it if you want to hear the stupidest song ever recorded. butter rolls!

thanks, secret pal!

2005-02-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

look what my secret pal sent me! a very happy valentine's day themed package! there are two skeins of a lovely boucle yarn, two heart-shaped candles, and three really cute heart stitch markers! thanks so much!

i'm busy thinking of things i could make with the yarn. and i have a relaxing evening of knitting planned and i'm going to enjoy the pretty candles then. thank you thank you thank you thank you!

this wonderful little package of happiness almost met its end out on the back porch where the mailman left it because my upstairs neighbor has the dog from hell. satan spawn. i know i'm a cat person, but i promise that i really do love dogs! but hers is a demon. bryan rescued it while i was down in san jose making giant strawberries (more on that later). the candles are slighty chewed and the yarn was unraveled. good thing the yarn wasn't chewed or i might have taken drastic action.

also on the porch with the remnants of my package (and the huge rotting cat structure) are three really big piles of dog shit. i'm not quite sure what to do about this. my neighbor goes out the back way every time she comes in and our of her apartment (upstairs), so i know she's probably seen it. just thinking about going upstairs and saying, "um, your dog crapped all over my porch, could you please pick it up because i'm certainly not going to and it's really gross," really makes me angry. i miss having at least one normal neighbor upstairs.

TGIF

2005-02-18T23:56:00.000-08:00

we made layered drinks in lab this afternoon. one we called "cupcake", based on a recipe from Dave's (a rotation student in the lab) friend. it had kaluha, bailey's, and stoli vanilla. it did not really taste like a cupcake at all.

and the other one we made, which sounded gross but most people liked, was the alien nipple. it was butterscotch schnapps, midori, and bailey's. yum yum.

yay for fridays!

silly sugary sushi

2005-02-17T12:53:00.000-08:00

yesterday, my lab mate cynthia IM'd me this link and asked me to make these for her. i said "sure!," although i have to admit i was regretting it a little while slicing fruit roll ups and twinkies at three o'clock this morning.

so many! for some crazy reason i didn't think twice about buying a box of 10 twinkies at target last night, and then realized when i got home that it was imperative that i use them all up or i would eat all the ones that were left. which makes for lots and lots of conversation-starting but gross-tasting treats. after a morning of offering on two floors in my building, i've only managed to get rid of 14 out of 30. but they look cute!

scientist that i am, i would like to offer some optimizations to the "recipe", although i'm probably the only person in the world who would ever make such god-awful snacks. stretch the fruit roll-up a little before you wrap it around the twinkie slice, because it looks like the fruit roll-up length is the exact right length to go around the twinkie, but it starts to come off when it doesn't stick to itself at the overlap. and i would round off the bottom corners of the twinkie next time before i cut the twinkies into slices so that they don't look so square. and there was only two green fruit roll-ups in the box of ten, so i had to use the other colors too, but if you wanted to get all martha stewart about these you could make your own fruit roll-up sheet and make the green look a little less neon and more sushi-like.

yay for yarn!

2005-02-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

i used to think that the knitting blogs i read that talked about these huge yarn stashes were completely crazy people when i first started knitting, but now i see that in a few years i'm going to have to rent another apartment just to keep my yarn in. they need to develop some kind of medication for this affliction.

on friday, we met bryan's parents for dinner to tell them all about our costa rica vacation, and his mom (the best mother-in-law in the entire universe) gave me this lovely basket with five different colors of Bernat Boa that she picked up for me at Michael's when it was on sale while i was gone.

and look what bryan bought me for valentine's day! enough kidsilk haze and the needles to make the camisole and cowl from weekend knitting! it was like i made him go to the yarn store with me and picked it out and told him to buy it for me! oh wait, that is what happened.

and finally, some baby presents - tonight i bought the blue debbie bliss merino dk to make new baby Noah (born yesterday!) a very cute hat and sock set from the debbie bliss baby knits book. and the pink lamb's pride is to make a pair of the cutest baby booties ever from the encylopedia of knitting.

tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff

2005-02-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

happy valentine's day! what a lovely day of sugar and kisses.

here is a kit that my aunt sent me over from Ireland for christmas. there is even a little brush to make the acrylic yarn all fluffy and stuffed-animal looking. i have huge doubts that i will ever be able to make the final product look like it should, but it's worth a try.

happy fun felting time

2005-02-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

my snow trip also gave me time to finish the marsupial bag for my niece. i was afraid it was going to be way way too big because of all my made-up calculations.

and i also think i found an error in the pattern - it said to knit 5 rows of the red for the pouch, but i think it really meant 5 inches or it wouldn't end up looking right. so i had to pull up the stitches all the bottom and knit more. i was thinking that the final dimensions would fit a notebook longways (standing up), but of course the excitement of felting things means you really have no idea what shape you'll get until you pull it out of the pillowcase. or maybe that's just me, i'm a little slow.

so it doesn't fit a notebook standing up, but it does fit one sideways. the white you can see in the bag is cereal boxes. it turns out that bryan's crazy person habit of buying 10 boxes of cereal that is on sale at the grocery store (you might think i'm exaggerating, but i'm not) is useful for me - i'm blocking the bag with three boxes of smart start with soy protein. so if melissa wants to carry cereal to class with her instead of school supplies and books, she's all set.

i know the little purse looks a bit giant, but i think it will be a nice size for wallet plus keys and maybe loose change. or it can be cut off if it turns out to be annoying and stupid. i am happy with the way it turned out, although i think it's weird that the red is more flopsy than the blue, and i was thinking the red also felt more puffy when i was knitting with it. strange. maybe the flopsy top gives it character.

let's look at it closer, shall we?

yay for felting!

a lovely trip to the snow

2005-02-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

i got back yesterday from a trip to tahoe with my lab. on tuesday we went snowshoeing and then on wednesday i sat in the lodge at kirkwood while bryan and some other people from my lab went snowboarding and skiing. here is han and cynthia and me in the snow (before our legs and feet exploded from the crazy hard snowshoeing trek):

and i was very productive with my knitting. i got the back of Ribbi up to the armhole decreases to catch up with heather.

doesn't lloyd look like he's in a casserole dish with a very orange cheesy topping? (mmmmmmmm, macaroni and cheese) he looked very frightened when i said this out loud.

secret pals 4 questions

2005-02-09T22:53:00.000-08:00

from looking around at the people doing secret pals 4, i noticed that the little questionnaire floating around would be very helpful when trying to send your pal stuff. so i answered all the questions to help my pal, wherever they are.

1. Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer high-end/natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? Or is it all the same to you?

kind of - i think cheap acrylic yarn definitely has its place, but if i'm making something special for someone, then i want nice yarn to show off all the hours i put into making the piece.

2. Do you spin? Crochet?

i learned how to crochet way before i learned how to knit, and i've never spun anything.

3. Do you have any allergies? (smoke, pets, fibers, perfume, etc.)

no. except for mosquito bites.

4. How long have you been knitting?

since October. my aunt re-taught me while she was visiting from Ireland.

5. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

yes, but i need to update it.

6. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.)

orange. i like all fruity scents. and most other scents, but those are my favorite.

7. Do you have a sweet tooth?

yes. i like milk chocolate the most and dark chocolate the least, and pretty much everything in between.

8. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do?

i like making cat furniture, and hope to learn to sew soon (as soon as i buy myself a sewing machine) and i like making soap and bath products.

9. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

i can play MP3s, and i have a very diverse taste in music.

10. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer?

orange. and i really like all bright colors.

11. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

Married (just celebrated our 11 years since our first date anniversary) and four cute cats.

12. What are your life dreams? (really stretching it here, I know)

to be happy.

13. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with?

i love lamb's pride. and i like fun novelty yarns, i don't care that they're not cool anymore.

14. What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

the only yarn that i haven't liked so far was one called Snowflake. it was a fleecy yarn and i wanted to set it on fire. but it made a really cute baby hat.

15. What is/are your current knitting obsession/s?

i don't have anything in particular, just obsessed with knitting in general.

16. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

i really like felting things.

17. What are you knitting right now?

Ribbi Cardi, the marsupsial bag from Stitch n' Bitch, a garter stitch cotton washcloth, and a big afgan for my couch.

18. What do you think about ponchos?

that they look like you're wearing a blanket. a poncho would be nice to keep me warm in my ice castle of an apartment, but i would never wear it outside.

19. Do you prefer straight or circular needles?

it depends what i'm making - i use straights for scarves and washcloths.

20. Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

i like all of them.

21. Are you a sock knitter?

not yet, but soon.

22. How did you learn to knit?

my aunt retaught me last October.

23. How old is your oldest UFO?

4 months

24. What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird?

cats are wonderful, and i like the characters from A Nightmare Before Christmas.

25. What is your favorite holiday?

my birthday. it's a holiday for me.

26. Is there anything that you collect?

yarn and cute socks and random craft-making crap.

my luckiest day

2005-02-06T01:09:00.000-08:00

one of my favorite moments while we were in Costa Rica was when a lucky 89 butterfly landed on me (i don't know the scientific name for it). we had been to a butterfly garden in Monteverde and watched a cheesy video that talked about it - it is very rare and supposed to be good luck if one flies into your house. they say you should play the lottery if that happens. since it happened on the first day of our backpacking trip, and i was carrying my house on my back, then it was like it landed in my house. now i need to change my lucky numbers.

and bryan has started putting up the Costa Rica pictures! click here!

Chapter 3: Ulceration of the Cornea

2005-02-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

you can see the ulcer! isn't that neat? the eye doctor was impressed with my healing yesterday, but i still have to go back on monday. it feels almost better today. and did anybody notice how Seth talked about his corneal abrasion on the OC this week? i am so cool!

this is how freaky i looked with my one dilated eyeball:

and here is the lovely shield that bryan constructed on my glasses to protect my bad eye. the one part you can't see in the picture is the lab tubing that goes across the back to hold the glasses on since they are heavy on one side and kept falling off. i wonder why people were staring at me - it's so lovely!

and since it's almost healed, this will probably be the last eyeball picture for a while (i know, very sad). this is my eye when it was tired and hurty.

cat playtime excitement

2005-02-04T20:24:00.000-08:00

there's a lady that works in the lab next to mine whose cats i have watched a few times when she's been out of town. on tuesday, she asked me to look after them next week for a few days, and then she gave me A MEOW TOWN CAT TUNNEL. i cannot express the excitement i felt. i looked like a crazy berkeley person (yet again) as i tried to ride home with it hanging by my handlebars. i almost died, but it was worth it, we're talking about a meow town cat tunnel here.

in spite of the many "Hide & Play Tunnel" features (thick berber provides warmth, treated with catnip for added fun, krinkle lining keeps cats curious), the cats were not jumping for joy at this playtime opportunity like i was. i threw almost an entire bottle of treats into it in an attempt to get them to go in, but with no luck. i'm hoping that they get used to it and realize how much more fun they could be having.

while they get used to it, it turns out that i brought them something back from costa rica to play with. we bought a lovely handmade mobile from a man in san jose. he explained how great it was for 10 minutes to try and sell it to us. of course it was all in spanish, so we missed most of it except fuerte. he was very emphatic about the fuerte part. i don't think he understood what this poor mobile would be up against.

finally, some knitting! and corneal ulcers!

2005-02-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

since i did start this as a knitting blog, i suppose i should show some pictures of my knitting. before i went on vacation i was working on the marsupial bag from Stitch n' Bitch for my niece Melissa (very late Christmas present). i decided to use lamb's pride bulky instead of the worsted that the pattern calls for so i'd get a thicker, bigger bag, and i already had blue in bulky. i got some red since she requested University of Arizona colors, and then i read the pattern. the bag is actually made with two strands of worsted held together, which turns out to be more bulky than the bulky yarn. way to be prepared. so i tried to normalize the gauge, but then who knows how it will felt differently, and i want it to be big enough for a notebook and other school crap, so i did some random calculations and multiplied all the numbers by 1.5. it will be interesting to see how it turns out. these pictures don't really show the bag that well but they do show how good i am at torturing pets.

i am quite positive that oscar is missing snuggling with me. (sad moan)

i made the red flower washcloth from the first pattern in Weekend Knitting using crystal palace cotton chenille. it was the first thing i made on circular needles. i liked how it turned out, and the cotton chenille is nice and soft, but it was a lot of work for a washcloth. my sister is definitely worth it, though.

and this is my sunflower variation. bryan came up with the idea while i was making the red one, and his sister Cheryl loves sunflowers, so i thought it would be worth trying. crystal palace doesn't make a yellow that was bright enough, so i used some lion brand microspun because it was the right color. it was too thin so i held two strands together, but i think that turned out a little thick. the brown middle is the cotton chenille, and i like how it's a different texture that the petals. if i did it again i would try to find a different yarn for the yellow. maybe i could dye the white cotton chenille? i have another friend who loves sunflowers, so i'm sure she'd love one of these. and she's worth it, too.

in other news, it turns out i didn't have to worry about my presentation (yet) because my eye turned into a giant swollen ball of painful hurtiness. i hope the gross picture of my eye doesn't startle anyone. i don't understand the infatuation i have with my eyeballs lately. thank goodness bryan spent tons of money on a good macro lens, or i would never be able to show this.

i started having pain in my eye yesterday around one in the afternoon, and since bryan and i had some strange tropical eye infection for three days about a week ago, i thought it was coming back. but it got very bad very quickly - we took the picture at nine o'clock. heather's diagnosis was infection by a tropical eyeball-eating worm. that's pretty much what it felt like. i became quite concerned and called my boss to ask his doctor wife her opinion. i took the picture to email it to her so that she could help me figure out if i should run screaming to the emergency room. from the picture and the fact that light was hurting my eye, she said that i should err on the side of caution and go to the emergency room, which at least gave me the perfect reason to cancel my presentation since my boss knew i wasn't just being a lazy flake. i decided to go to a very small little emergency room medical center place that i went to once and it was pretty fast because there was only one other person there. i don't really understand how they could still be open, but they were. i unfortunately picked a time when lots of people with life-threatening emergenies wanted to go to the emergency room too, and they took priority over my exploding eyeball hanging out of its socket by its optic nerve, as well they should. but i had to wait a long time. bryan fell asleep bent over in a chair in a very impossible-looking sleeping position and finally went out to the car to sleep. the only doctor there finally had a break from doing real doctor work and came in for about 72 seconds to put a dye in my eye and then shine some sort of blacklight on it and say, "oh my, did you get lots of sand in your eye or have you been in extreme sun?" and it turns out that she said i had two corneal abrasions. i have no idea what could have happened - i was around lots of sand and extreme sun in costa rica, but that was 8 days before. very strange. perhaps i should stop using my sand and broken glass citrus-mango eyeball scrub for a while.

she gave me a presciption for antibiotics drops and told me to go to the eye doctor. i was relieved that my eyeball was not being eaten by a microscopic army, but it was still hurting really bad. i had never thought about what a swollen eyeball would feel like. lots of painful pressure and the fear that my eyeball would explode, if you had ever wondered. she gave me a presciption for antibiotics and told me to go to the eye doctor as soon as possible.

after sleeping poorly due to dreams of rupturing eyeballs, i went to the student eye center today for about three hours, and they discovered that they weren't just wimpy corneal abrasions, they were corneal ulcers. when i get strange and unexplainable eye problems, i do it right. one is so big that you can see it, i'm told. it's one millimenter in diameter. they dilated my eye with super-duper mega dilation drops, because for some reason that i don't understand yet the chance for infection goes way down if you dilate the eye. my eye will stay dilated for at least 24 hours. yay!

it looks really freaky to have dilated eyes, but to only have one looks even freakier. i know that it will be an overload of eyeball pictures on this blog, but i'm totally taking one later and posting it. i can't see anything closer than five feet away with my bad eye, so i have to block one side of my glasses to prevent my head from exploding. good thing this is berkeley, because i looked like a nutcase with my cheap eye-doctor-just-dilated-my-eyes-wraparound "sunglasses" under my glasses and a piece of pink paper taped over the right lens. talk about hot. i'm pretty sure i'm going to start a trend. bryan went to work constructing me a lovely shield with black velvet and paperboard over the right lens of my glasses, and completed it with a big red X on the front. quite an improvement from the pink paper. what a great husband i have.

winning the gold medal in the time management olympics

2005-02-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

why do i like to procrastinate? i know it just stresses me out, but i always do it anyway. i have a presentation tomorrow morning that's going to take me all night to prepare for, but i'm consumed by my desire to post about brownies that heather and i made weeks ago. i'm sure once i finish this post that i'll get right to work. yep.

don't they look lovely? and they were pretty tasty, too. we had been on a brownie-making run for a few evenings, and when the box mixes ran out, we decided to make them from scratch. but then we didn't have any butter and heather had to search forever for a recipe that used oil instead of butter. we didn't anticipate it being that difficult. we didn't write down the site so we could refer to it, but here's what heather scribbled down:

3/4 cup cocoa
2/3 cup oil
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup boiling water
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt

mix the cocoa and the baking soda, add 1/3 a cup of the oil, then add the boiling water and mix until it starts to thicken. add the sugar, eggs, and the rest of the oil, then the flour, vanilla, and salt. mix it all up good. oh and we added some chocolate chips as well. we wanted lots of chocolate. mmmmm, i want chocolate now. we put it in a 9 x 13 pan and they came out kind of thin. we also put some peanut butter in the micrwave to make it runny and then poured it over the top in lines and heather made it into a pretty design with a knife. it said to bake them at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, but our oven is kind of crazy since all the glass on the front exploded in a giant safety glass mess last year when our housemate brian was using it. it gets way hotter than the temperature you put it at, so i think we set it at about 250 and then kept checking until they were done, maybe it was about an hour.

considering we were too lazy to go to the store and get butter to make one of the 99 million "normal" brownie recipies on the web, i think they turned out pretty well. damn, now i might have to go and make some brownies before i start my presentation preparation.

sad and happy at the same time

2005-02-02T13:36:00.000-08:00

i was happy to get home from my vacation because i missed my daily routine, although i was sad to end the vacation. and i am back in my routine, but now i have to accept the fact that heather has left me and moved far away (sad pathetic mopey moan). she left me some exciting presents - here is some lovely yarn that i was admiring at imagiknit when we went there together. it looks like an eyelash yarn made of out plastic, and that's exactly what it feels like. i think it is wonderful. but it makes me think of me and heather shopping at imagiknit. oh, i'm so conflicted.

she also gave us a fancy cat toy that she didn't want anymore, the pump n' run. she brought it down when the kittens were little, but they didn't seem very impressed by it. now it is a different story - you are supposed to squeeze the pump to make the little mouse move from one hole to the other, but after i did that for about two seconds the kittens just went nuts and played with it for about an hour with no pumping necessary from me. the perfect lazy person cat toy.

another thing she left me was a creation of mine and bryan's that she was so kind as to house for the last two years - a gigantic cat playland that we built while we were in tucson (it's all taken apart and kind of jumbled so you can't appreciate its full crazy cat peron glory in the picture). i didn't have room for it when we got a housemate and had to clear out the second bedroom, but we spent so much time making it that i didn't want to get rid of it yet either. it was very nice of heather to give it a home for a while - her two kitties enjoyed it. but now i don't know what to do with it. it would be a squeeze, but we could fit it into out office-y area, but we were thinking we would be something new as a fun project for 2005. i guess i could call the milo foundation and see if they could use it there.

since it's covered in about ten thousand square miles of carpet, i need to do something soon so that it doesn't just degrade into a soggy, mushy, pile of moldy berber and particle board pieces. it's the rainy time of year right now, dontcha know. while i now have the agony of my decision to deal with, the up side is that heather and patrick stapled their lovely ocean themed shower curtain to the side of the porch to help protect it from the rain.

the reason that this is so wonderful is because i have been jealous for many years now of my neighbor's many tarps. he's a little obsessed with tarps - we found the kittens in his yard under a big couch that was under a couch-shaped tarp. he has a million things in his yard and they're all covered by a custom fitted tarp. we especially like the way his house extension load-bearing tarps snap and flap in the wind tunnel that exists between our two houses. don't you just love how the tarps match the sky perfectly?

but now i'm the one to beat on the block, because i have a tarp with fish on it. a whole aquarium/ocean theme. so there! keep up with that, neighbors.

hola amigos!

2005-02-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

so i'm back from a lovely vacation in spectacular costa rica. we had tons and tons of fun and saw lots and lots of wild animals. i can't wait until bryan finishes editing the pictures so i can post some of them here. my fears of death by snake bite, crocodile eating, shark eating, or teeny tiny plane crashing turned out to be unfounded. although i did see crocodiles in one of the rivers we had to cross while backpacking and we saw three snakes. which means about a thousand snakes saw us. but only one was a scary poisonous one, and it was dead. so not as scary. the worst things that happened were some sunburns and about ten gazillion bites from god knows how many different creatures. here is a picture of me after hiking about 16 miles. 10 of them were on the beach in the crazy costa rican sun and we had to cross 5 rivers and it rained (understatement, the sky opened and dumped all of its contents) on us twice and it was about 100 degrees and 99% humidity and little sand flies bit the shit out of the back of my legs under my pants. it looked like someone had peeled the skin off of my legs, that's how red it was. our backpacks weighed at least 40 pounds. and it took 12 hours. and it was the most beautiful day of backpacking i've ever had.

Jennifer is in Costa Rica

2005-01-16T01:10:00.000-08:00

Dear Pretty Knitty Kitty City Readers,

Jennifer is on vacation until February 1st and so she will not be able to update, probably, unless she finds an internet cafe in the cloud forest. I am writing this for her because she had to spend every last moment cramming things into her pack. Until she returns, please think good thoughts about her with regard to this irritable poisonous snake that lives in trees and has really freaky eyebrows. And also all the other poisonous snakes. The knitters among you will be pleased to know that she took sock yarn and dpns with her in her backpack.

If she emails me I will let you know!

Yours truly,
Heather

a crappy day for science

2005-01-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

yesterday was a horrible, horrible day for science at my lab bench. the very complicated, time-intensive experiment i was in the middle of doing pretty much exploded on me. took a crap right on my face. i had a little bit of a breakdown over it, and then went home and knit myslef a lovely scarf. the first thing i've made for myself so far. it matches the hat i made for my sister for christmas. i used size 50 needles so it was really fast. it is super long.

in this picture, lloyd was saying, "this is only one scarf? are you a crazy person that knits insanely long scarves and then makes her cat talk about them in his imaginary cat voice? you are a wacko."

but then i wrapped him up in it and he fell asleep. how cute.

i made another baby hat before christmas for bryan's boss' son Janis. i based it on the umbilical cord hat from Stitch n' Bitch and used debbie bliss casmerino aran. i would never have guessed that one year olds have such big heads. here he is on full cuteness power modeling it.

two very nice things that happened yesterday as well. my friend Wendy called me and told me how much she loves all the bath products that Heather and i made for christmas. she said it was the best present she has ever gotten. quite a compliment! she is very excited for us to get going with our business (just a preview, notice how wonderful the little buttons on the side are? they are animated and have lovely little bubbles that show up when you put the mouse over them and each one has different color bubbles. different colors! we are so fancy! and she found the most perfect font for us because it looks almost like the writing we did on the labels. what a good font detective! heather is a wonderful website design expert artist, just wonderful.) so she can order lots of things from us. it was a very nice phone call.

and then my housemate Brian came home from his Ireland vacation and brought me two kinds of chocolates, hot toddies which had whiskey and pepper in them (strange but yummy), and cadbury roses which have lots of different kinds of the yummiest chocolates ever. it made me forget about my crappy day of science failure. yay for chocolate.

a rush to get ready

2005-01-11T17:23:00.000-08:00

with all of the preparations for our big trip to costa rica this saturday, my knitting productivity has plunged. i cast on for the marsupial bag from Stitch n' Bitch on Saturday night. we made a nice dinner at heather's house. she has pictures of things we ate here. here is bryan with heather's cat bruno. he is squishy. the yarn i'm using for the bag is right beside bryan on the couch. can't you just imagine the lovely bag it will make?

silly picture day

2005-01-08T18:01:00.000-08:00

here is a picture of my eyeball. isn't it scary? bryan got his new macro lens last night and was testing it out.

and after all that testing out of the lens, there was a massive catnap on the bed. party of five, your catnap is ready . . .

keyser barely fits in the kitty bed. he makes a 100% filled cat pie.

and here is the finished kitty hat from Stitch n' Bitch for my niece. keyser was thrilled to try it on.

presents for me

2005-01-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

i went to michael's last night and spent the gift card my sister gave me for christmas. i got a set of 3 lined shallow wicker baskets, which i realize now the picture doesn't show very well. i also got 2 balls of paton cha-cha in siren, which i know is a silly novelty yarn, and not even a nice one at that, but i have a strange fascination with it. i think it's because it's curly. i also got two balls of allure in black, some darning needles, and a set of pom-pom makers. thanks so much for everything, Suzanne! i already put the pom-pom makers to work finishing the kitty hat. i'll take a picture of it tomorrow after i block it.

and heather bought me some lovely orange brown sheep nature spun to make socks out of. now i have to figure out how to make socks.

let's all admire christmas hats some more

2005-01-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

there are some angles of the two hats i made for my sister that have not yet been admired. and these are both really cute pictures so i wanted to put them up as well.

here is my sister with her boyfriend Pat, in the classic prom picture pose. they make a picture-perfect couple, no?

and this must be the cutest picture ever of my dad (wearing Suzanne's other hat), although it shows very clearly the error i made in the seaman's cap not continuing the ribbing past the fold. that's why there's more ribbing past the fold! oh well, at least i got this picture out of it.

a couple of other things i made while in phoenix for christmas - a fancy scarf for my grandma and a baby hat for Stefanie's baby Joey. the scarf is made of a ribbion-y yarn that i don't remember the name of and rowan kidsilk haze. i did garter stitch with dropstitch randomly distributed. i'm not sure if i did the dropstitch technically correctly, but it seemed to work, so i went with it.

i based the hat on the Stitch n' Bitch umbilical cord hat, but i used lamb's pride bulky and size 11 needles. i have yet to hear if it fits. hopefully i'll get a picture of it being worn soon so i can post that too.

more presents

2005-01-06T02:55:00.000-08:00

here is the purse i made for my sister for christmas. i used lamb's pride bulky in rosado rose and garnet, and used some crystal palace merino frappe in places as well. i like how it turned out except i think the straps are too wide. 11 stitches were too many, methinks. that's about the only thing i remember, so i guess i'll never make another one the same. i should write things down so i don't forget what i made up. and heather suggested velcro, which worked perfectly. heather is wonderful!

and this is the little change purse i made for my second cousin Edel. i put a gift card for barnes and noble inside it instead of the money when i gave it to her (that's just for scale). i used some of the garnet lamb's pride and a black zipper that i rather crappily sewed in. my first thing with a zipper! yay!

now i've shown all of these things separately, but here is my sister looking like a bag lady on christmas morning trying them all out.

礼物从辛西亚

2005-01-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

看辛西亚给我们为圣诞节的可爱的礼物。我得到了俏丽和五颜六色的蜡烛, 石南属植物被得到的你好全部赌注组织, 并且韩得到了一个可爱的清楚的大猩猩按摩器以靶垛孔。相当陶瓷全部赌注想要是它的朋友。谢谢, 辛西亚!