Friday, September 26, 2008

Stuff

Well, there was a comment yesterday about what happened to the other blog content, which left me a bit befuzzled, as I always intended this to be a knitting blog. I guess I'd been getting more sidetracked than I realized in the past. (fyi, I do keep separate blogs for my house/garden and my pets, but it seemed a little schizophrenic to do them all at once - maybe I'm wrong about that)

In any case, I've had some random things bugging me recently, so this seemed as good as any excuse to let them out.

To begin with: There is a motivational-style poster near the elevators at my work that states 'Why can't an Engineering major enjoy a little Edgar Allen Poe once in a while'.

Our company deals with libraries, so it's a generally appropriate poster. Even better than that, I was an Engineering major (or Computer Science, through the engineering department at least - classify how you will), and I took offense at the professors who assumed we were in the major because we hated our english classes. I adore me some good literature, and will yammer your ear off about the revolutionary ambiguity in Antigone, the importance of context in appreciating Wuthering Heights, the complete contrast between 1984 and Brave New World, or how every male lead in a chick flick is in some way derivative of Mr. Darcy. Oh wait, I already have.

So why does this poster bug me?

Because nobody ever bothers asks the reverse. 'Why can't an english major enjoy a little fluid dynamics now and then?' or discrete math? How about Quantum, or even Newtonian physics? But those are hard, you may say. Or maybe irrelevant. And I disagree. They're no harder that Poe - definetly no harder than Shakespeare. Saying otherwise is an insult to english majors, and a disservice to engineering majors, who get their friends, family, and potential compatriots scared away from understanding what it is they really do. 'because it's hard'

hmm, I had other thoughts, but maybe that's enough for one day.

(oh, and there's another poster in that hall which proclaims 'no to libraries are alike, isn't that a wonderful thing' that I have many time wanted to rip off the wall and set fire to when our current project involved painstakingly going through every possible stupid idiosyncrasy anyone ever thought of and dealing with it, instead of just telling them to standardize their darn system already! -- thanks, I feel a little better now)

Monday, September 22, 2008

Dude, I seamed.

And I'm not even done with all the pieces!

I started by tacking over the selvedge/drawstring place on gigi's shoulder, because, well, the tail I needed to use was right there, and I didn't want to do the counting involved in casting on a new piece.

And then I just kept going. I have seams and woven in ends on the 2/3 pieces I've completed. I'm not sure if this is a particularly well-written pattern*, or if I'm reaching a new level, but I'm doing a much better job at finishing on this piece than I have in the past. Finishing has been one of the things I've been unhappy with in my previous work, so I like this improvement.

* I must point out. This is the first pattern I've followed in some time. THAT MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT, that someone else actually put thought into the finishing techniques so I saw them from the get-go instead of me looking back at what I've shaken out of my head and saying 'huh, doesn't look right'.

Friday, September 12, 2008

frogged and restarted

I finished the back of the silk gigi by the end of the olympics - if you don't count weaving in ends, which I haven't done. That's why I don't go in for that sort of thing. Then I started the left front, and finished the (extended) ribbing, and looking at the instructions for the after-ribbing-stuff realized I'd futzed something up with the pattern and how the button band was supposed to go.

(what part of p1, (k1 p1)x3, k2 p2 to end looks like 'do the whole thing in 2x2 rib just like the last piece' to you? Apparently part of it did to me)

It was probably a good thing though, since in restarting, I noticed that a) I think I had two fewer stitches than I should have, and b) I was using the larger 'stockinette needles' for the ribbing.

Ah well, I have an inch or so done again.

Oh, and I am completely loving the tubular cast on thing. I can do it by memory now. It does help in the picking up if you use bigger needles for the flat part though.