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.

Does this count as olympic knitting?

I didn't do it intentionally, but last night, I cast on for gigi with my colourmart silk.

For once, things conspired in my favor, as the smaller gauge I was getting corresponded perfectly with the smaller size I wanted, as opposed to landing off the charts somewhere and requiring a lot of math and frustration as it usually does. (by the way, my target size for this is 26" circumference - it matches one of my T-shirts for ease)

I tried the invisible 2x2 cast-on outlined in the fall interweave knits (it is *so* novel to be receiving these magazines). It was great. Way easier than the tubular cast on's I'd seen before. Also way easier than provisional cast ons I see recomended. Every time I do one of those, it seems to unravel from the bottom. I know, it's not supposed to do that, but it *does*. Or it did. Maybe it has to do with it being ribbing?

In any case, winner on the invisible tubular cast on. The only change I would make would be to do the initial rows in larger needles. But maybe it said that and I didn't notice.

I'm glad I did find a technique I could use in that issue, as there really weren't any patterns I'd use. Maybe the colorwork sweater - maybe.

So, yeah, enough about cast ons. I started at the beginning of evening coverage, and stopped at midnight. Then I stayed up to watch the end of the men's gymnastics final because it was way cool. But I didn't knit for that half hour or so, because I was mostly asleep, and having problems. In that time, I knit about an inch and a half of ribbing. Yes, 104 stitches across, on size 2's, with roughly fingering weight yarn. But still, a little over an inch. There are 5 inches of ribbing total, and this is only the back piece, and I want to make the ribbing longer since I'm long waisted.

I guess it's a good thing I didn't make this official, because there's no way I'd finish in time.

House

and, we have a house.

Good news? It's ~100 years old, and cute as anything, with great space, and a nearly 3 acre yard in the middle of the country.

Bad news? It's ~100 years old, and needs new floors, walls, and other things before we can move into it, which it's looking like will happen in January.

So, not much knitting now. Or blogging, though we have lots of house 'before' pictures I want to get on a webpage someday - but, y'know, I'm spending all my time working on the house!

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Now that's interesting...

In reading my daily blogs, I found this announcement from my reader.
Sew, Mama, Sew! on the Move
Basically, they aggregated their top 1000 feeds to a list, and pointed some out.
What I thought was interesting, was the thematic analysis. Basically, tech stuff was king, then humor and news, but the final category they found noteworthy was craft blogs. The blog from the title, YarnHarlot, and a third that I didn't look into.

Huh.

Now, I haven't done any analysis outside of reading that article, so maybe their PR writer sews, and this is just an outlier because that's what she wanted to write about. Maybe it's old news to everyone else. But while I knew crafty blogs were popular, I wouldn't have pegged them over, say, fashion. So, huh.

In other news, the house sellers we've been talking to accepted our remediation, so we may well be moving out of the grandparents' soon. On the other hand, they haven't gotten back to us on when the septic is being done (which for various reasons, has to happen before close) so we don't actually have a close date... And soon is a relative term: we're thinking with the holidays, and the amount of work we want to do, we'll actually be moving sometime in January.

So I dreamed I went to Rhinebeck...

That's a little sad, isn't it? M was a little taken aback when I told him I'd dreamed of a 'going to a yarn show' (his dream was a much more impressive affair of post-apocalyptic spain or something)

Rhinebeck was quite nice in my dream, though replete with odd spectacles like a lan-party full of high schoolers throwing pink balloons, and tossing second cuts over the crowd like confetti that I doubt were accurate representations of the festivities.

Really, though, Rhinebeck wasn't something I gave much thought to, it's a long way away, we're busy now, and I'm much more in a 'finishing' groove now than a 'stashing/starting/buying' one, and have only been to one fiber-fest-type ever before now. The only reason I even knew about it was everyone blogging about their exploits. So I'm a bit surprised it was on my mind enough to feature full dream.

Apparently though, I want some brooks farm yarn, as this featured prominently. Honestly, I can't believe how accurate my dream memory of this was when I looked it up this morning. I both dreamed an actual yarn company, remembered their lines (though I did transpose the fiber content of some) and had a valid reason for wanting to buy it at a festival. (I'm sensitive to mohair, and wanted to know if it was soft enough).

The way my dreams normally go, I would be fruitlessly searching for the special parrot-feather-and-rum yarn from scurvy pete's yarn booty or something equally outrageous (see lan-party with balloons, above)

in which I fail (again) at ordering yarn.

So, remember back last winter when I thought I ordered from webs, but hadn't?

Well, I recently tried again at online ordering. First, I forgot that while I entered my new married name at the yarn site, they used paypal for payment, and my account there still had my maiden name - imagine what a mess that could have been. But apparently my credit card remembered who I used to be, and took the payment anyway. Phew. Disaster averted.

But then! I get an email from them: the USPS says your address doesn't exist, but we noticed you listed something different on the paypal. Should we resend it there? Ohmygosh. Back in the day when I registered on that site, I entered my then college dorm address (apparently partial/incorrect - who gets mail at a dorm anyway?). Somehow. I neglected to update that when I decided to place an order and told them to ship it there.

Note that this company is in the uk. So in order for the post office to tell them I'd entered some monkey poo instead of a real address, it presumably had to cross the Atlantic - twice!
I cannot believe that by this point someone hadn't thrown the darn thing in the trash as said to heck with this person who can't figure out her own order! I would have.

I've ordered on the internet before! I swear I have! I don't know why I fail at doing it now. But I think I should be banned or something. Only allowed to do so under strict supervision.

But in any case. If you're thinking of ordering from colourmart. Know that their customer service is *phenomenal*.

Wearing shawls in public

I wore my fps to a concert the other night (and yes, I wore more under it than I did in the first pictures - a black camisole to be precise)

It was wonderful. It was light and warm-but-not-too-warm and really really perfect. I was astounded, and honestly, I didn't figure on it being too terribly practical, despite what I've heard from everyone else. Because really, it didn't *look* practical.

I ended up sort of crossing the ends over one shoulder without actually tying them, since tying looked a little frumpy. It was a *little* short for this to work quite perfectly. I'm not sure whether a shawl pin would help, or be to heavy and ruin the effect. It would be worth looking for a lightweight one at least.

Or I could trying using a bamboo dpn ;)

I tried to wash it afterwards and just push it into shape rather than going all out with wires and pins. We're in a strange in-between state with living and washing arrangements currently - not much space to stick pins in, and I don't even know where my wires are. I do not think it was a success. Too bad. Blocking takes so darn long I was hoping I wouldn't have to do that step every time I wore it. But I worry more about ruining it if I don't wash it every time, since it was next to my bare skin, and I don't want the oils to sit on it and cause it to deteriorate or discolor. Would this really happen, or am I worrying too much?

So moral of the story: I do like wearing shawls. I must make more shawls. The shawls must be larger. Blocking is a bear.