Need to make...

this

Snowflake Scarf

Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas, Alpaca Worsted, 4 skeins, natural and light blue
Gauge: 14 sts, 16 rows per 4"
Pattern: My own
Needles: size 8? bamboo.

This is one of my favorite projects. It's also My mother's, for what that's worth. This yarn is incredibly precious. You touch it and can't believe something so soft came from a living animal. That said, there are some guard hairs that I notice on my very sensitive neck. Not enough not to wear it. Also, one (not terribly long, though grandted double-thick) scarf like this will set you back $80. Phew.
It is beautifully warm though. Just long enough to really wrap across your face once. And quite good at hiding beginner's DK eveness issues. Also, it has a cable construction, and really hasn't pilled in two winter's worth of resonable wear. It does leave some fuzzies on my black wool coat, but the scarf itself is doing quite well.
Appoligies on the pictures - the coloration of this is incredibly hard to capture for some reason. It's subtle and pale, but not nearly as blurry and grey as these suggest. Most pictures that showed any kind of contrast either washed the whole thing to white so you could barely see the patten, or made the blue a strange brilliant cyan. I need to get better with the camera.

Progress on Many Fronts

The temperature here has finally crested freezing, after nearly a week of nasty, terrible snow-spitting misery, made all the more keen by the gorgeous 80 degree days that followed it. It isn't exactly balmy at 40F, and we probably won't have any lilacs, or many other early spring flowers here, and it's forcasted to be rainy and grey for the next, well, ever. But at least it isn't nasty-cold any more.

We're trying to grow some lettuce on the patio this year, and even after going un-watered through the 80-degree honeymoon, and left outside through the first sub-freezing night (before we realized that it was going to *stay* like that) it's not dead. Most of the problems seem to relate to itty-bitty lettuce seeds floating away in lightweight peat soil, and redistributing themselves to non-ideal locations. And they probably need thinned, but I'd like to wait until the mix seeds differentiate themselves somewhat, so I don't end up with all one thing.
(The two big containers are spinach and romaine, the little ones are a mesculn mix)

M's been great this weekend getting presents under control and put away, which is fortunate, since I've been grouchy and tired, and generally hard to motivate to do anything but sit. It still isn't done, but it's making progress.

Also making progress are the sleeves on the handpaintedyarn sweater. (in case you can't tell, that's almost a full pair there) There's been some pooling even with the alternation, some of which I find fascinating and beautiful, some of which I find, well, tolerable enough to not be worth ripping things out and trying to break the yarn to fix it.



Which leaves me dangerously close to having to make a decision (read: figure out) how to do the button band. I sense a stall coming on here...

and I still can't find the rest of my FP shawl pattern

Got Married

It's funny how my ability to think about this is hampered by the fact that I will never do it again, and therefore learning from it is irrelevant. I'd never realized how much my thought processes are centered around learning and improvement. it kept catching me unawares when I was thinking about it.

That's sort of an anti-climatic way to start that post isn't it?

To be fair, it really was a little anti-climatic, which was pretty much as I expected, seeing as we'd been as-good-as married for two whole years of engagement.

In any case, thoughts, whether I learned from them or not:

I was definitely right about not being able to handle an exciting strenuous trip to europe immediately afterwards - hocking hills was just about the right speed. Should have had the foresight to pack gatoraide and a massage for that night.

Ari very seriously critiquing Paige's performance as flower girl. Apparently 'her mom did most of it' well, she is two, so that was sort of the plan. Ari really is more the right age, but as an oldest sibling myself, I could not do that to her oldest sibling.

Should have invited more people to the rehearsal dinner, since even though I think I did a good job of mingling, I did not spend nearly as much time with my closer family as I wanted to.

Only had one contact. That plus veil equals very blurry vision. Didn't give me a headache, just kinda weird.

Flowers were good. Some of the corsages were magenta rather than pastel, which strangely aligned with my primary nagging fear in the days leading up, but the main bouquets were right.

Music was good, though I wish I'd had more time to relax and listen to it, as from all reports it was in fact, really good. This contradicts my other main nagging fear, suggesting that I should not in fact quit my job to become a psychic.

People were impressed by the cake (yay) but some seemed confused by the food format, expecting to be excused like a buffet. I think more tall tables, smaller stations, and some passed stuff would have helped this, but again, when am I ever going to use that knowledge?

One of my friends took pictures and posted them, which was nice to have right away like that. May post some, though I'm a little squeamish about posting face-pictures on the internet.

M realized when we got back that I hadn't brought my knitting and thanked me. I thought that was a little silly, since I didn't really think I'd have much opportunity to knit. He also gave me a hard time when I thanked him for making sure we could watch the basketball game (NCAA championship), since apparently, as a girl, I'm not supposed to allow sports on my honeymoon? Apparently his boss was also surprised that he'd been able to watch it, which I find particularly bizarre, since we watch most games with him. Does he really think that I would hang around with a bunch of M's work people, while the other wives were somewhere else if I did not actually like watching the games? M's boss is great, I really like him, but he's so fun to pick on, and he's definitely getting an earful for this one.

Germany

So, there appears to be a possibility we will be moving to Germany for the next 2-4 years.
M's company has a position there (dependent on a contract that has yet to be signed, so this is no definite thing) and he came home joking one day that we might take it rather than hiring a new person to go. We laughed, and brushed it off. About a week later, we both came back to it. Y'know, maybe it's not such a crazy idea. We aren't likely to ever be less tied down than we are now. When I count the tangible 'big' things we've acquired, which are actually *ours* it's two cars, a couch, some computer equipment, a washer-dryer set. Not much. Not to much to move or leave as things require.
The company would pay for the move. They would hire me on additionally. They would pay for housing. There is apparently no income tax? While the cost of living in Europe is higher, they would essentially double our salary (still in dollars) and that's on top of the free housing and tax free status. This would put us in a much more favorable position to buy a house when we got back, as opposed to just scraping by as we were looking to do this summer. It seems like one of those absolutely perfect opportunities, and everything that is scary about it are things that I would be a better person for having faced.
That said, what's scary about it:

• Being in another country. I make friends slowly. I lean on my family a lot. I was one of those kids who came home from college on weekends for things other than laundry. The social ramifications of this are staggering to me.
• The language. I am not one of those good with languages people. Apparently, English is very accepted in that area, but that's a cop-out. I'd feel like an ugly american living somewhere and not knowing the language.
• I would be working with M. While not as horrific of a failure as explaining math problems to M, coding with M has been, a bit dicey. Additionally, I would be working in an area that I'm not 100% comfortable/qualified. (despite the opinions of his boss, who has been making noises about hiring me since M mentioned my gpa) When I'm uncomfortable, and M is available for the purpose, I tend to lean on him. I'm not sure if this would be good in a long-term working environment. Add to that the previous issue of him being the only person I will know there, and I'm seeing a lot of him. It is definitely possible for me to o.d. on M.
• Plus: we would be essentially the most technical (at least computers/code-wise) people there. Minimal oversight. We can phone back to the office he's at now for support, and there's a non-technical manager/overseer type on base, but largely we are on our own. I worry that this may result in us being lazy and not learning/producing much in that time. Of course, this last one could really swing the other direction too.

But there it is. If this does go through, I will probably start a separate blog about it to avoid cluttering this up, but as it isn't even a definite yet, it's here for now.

In knitting, I'm almost done with the first sleeve of the handpainted yarn ribbed jacket. I got pooling despite the alternating yarn, but it's not too bad, so I'm ok with it.

losing everything

So, as a follow-up to my mysterious yarn shortage (I have finally bitten the bullet and ordered more - and needles 5 balls should be enough for sleeves, right? They were only 4$ each...) I have also lost 1/2 the pattern to the fps. Including the part that explains the part I'm on. So no work on that.

otoh, I have started on the sleeve for the handpainted yarn sweater. Started with sleeves, as I have yet to completely determine how I'm going to do the button band. Right now, thinking 1x1 rib on a smaller needle, with grosgrain sewn to the back. But still pondering.

It's working out nicely, very soft, the alternating colors seems to be working. Very snug too, which was to be expected, the original sweater was in an acrylic blend, so the rib didn't contract much. This is 100% merino, so it does. Good snugly feel to it, but it's going to be quite trim. While this is generally a plus, I'm a little nervous whether the body will end up too snug, and pull at the buttons, and I should revert to the turtleneck idea. I still prefer the idea of a cardigan, even if I only wear camisoles under it, so maybe I can block the lights out of the body when I wash it and have it work out. At worst, I suppose I could sew the button band shut, and have it be a 'pretend' cardigan.

Sleeve.


Working on the thicker dpns is hurting my left ring finger, since they neither bend like my sock pins, nor have yarn cushioning on that part like circulars. Saw on the KR forums today a post about flexi DPNs. at http://knittingonthego.samsbiz.com/page/150ww/Home.html. May have to try those out. Pretty cheap too.

In other news, the 'other' sock yarn is not turning out to be as heinous of a colorway as I had expected. Still not my fave, but it isn't paining me to work on. I did forget to factor in negative ease for the leg, so it's a bit loose, but I doubt these will really be favorite socks anyway, so I'm leaving it.

I am not seriously out of yarn ... am I?

I cast on for the dreaded first sleeve of the fair-isle sweater, as it has proved itself to indeed fit & not be ugly beyond all wearability.

I did the color work at the cuff, I got started on increases and... I finished my ball of yarn. Went to look for the next one. I've been stalling on this project for sometime, so I don't have a clear recollection of where the yarn was, or how much there was left, or anything like that. Couldn't find it. Now, I have a small stash, so it's not all that plausible that something could successfully hide in it. There just aren't that many places. I tried to look up my order receipt to confirm that yes, I had ordered a reasonable number of balls of the stuff, and I should not be out after finishing *only* the body, regardless of how much longer than specified I made it. Couldn't find the receipt. Couldn't find the yarn.

I guess I need to face the music. At least there is more of it on webs, and it's on even better sale than before. How much yarn does one need for a sleeve and 7/8 anyway?