I bought to-go cups at Sam's club to take my coffee to work in, but it's been burning my fingers between the parking lot and my office. Plus I needed some knitting instant gratification, so I made a cup cozy this afternoon.
I realized yesterday that it had been a while since I had posted anything here. There are multiple reasons for that. First my end of the semester, trying to get papers wrapped up craziness has transitioned directly into studying for comprehensive exams craziness. Second, I won't be making any more beer until I dispose of the majority of beer I have already made. Because of the end of the semester, there have been a lot of functions that involve drinking beer at the bar, which has cut into the consumption of my homebrew dramatically. I have managed to pawn some off onto the other PhD students and my husband's co-workers. In fact, a week ago Tuesday I was out in the partking lot behind my academic building at 5 pm handing out beer from the trunk of my car. That's right folks, I'm nothing if not classy. Finally, I have embarked upon two never ending knitting projects.
The first is the Lady Eleanor shawl. This one has actually been moving along at a relatively fast pace. In fact, I was pretty excited last weekend because I was within 4 tiers of the pattern specifications. I then tried to wrap it around me and realized that it's still too short. I should have expected this since I'm using a lighter weight yarn than the pattern calls for, but I miss the obvious sometimes. Anyway, I have plenty of yarn to keep going and make it long enough, but the disappointment of not being almost done with it was pretty crushing. The second project is a Hokie scarf for my daughter using the 1st/2nd year Harry Potter scarf pattern.
I never paid much attention to the scarves in the movies, but these things are basically a long tube of stockinette stitch. In fact, it's 361 rounds of it if I make it to pattern specifications and I'm making the small size. Now to be quite honest, I sort of like stockinette stitch in the round. I know some people find it terribly boring, but I find it sort of soothing. I would like it better if I could knit this on circulars rather than double points, but it's still not too bad. The big issue with this project is that it's going to be either a birthday or Christmas gift for Mara, so I can only work on it when she's not around, which generally means that I can only work on it between 9 pm when she goes to bed and whatever time I go to bed. The time restrictions have really slowed down my progress.
Hopefully I'll finish one of these projects up soon because I've been itching to move on to something else. If not, I may take a break and knit a couple coffee cup cozies one evening just so I can enjoy the sense of accomplishment.
Have I ever mentioned that I love reading Russian mail-order bride spam? Because, you know, I do. And it just so happens that I received an excellent example of the genre this afternoon. It begins, "Hello not the man familiar to me!", and gradually becomes less intelligible from there. Here are some of the highlights:
At first I wished to be presented. My name to Vera me of 29 years I live in Russia in the Cheboksary of I not married. And never was married. I have finished school and arrived in medical college finished it and went to work in hospital but only me never I carried could find to myself the man and me so it would be desirable it.
I have solved why and was not present if I could not find the man from Russia such destiny can at me and I should search the man from another of the countries. And they gave me yours e-mail the address and spoke that you search to yourself the woman. I took all data and went to the cafe Internet as I am not able to use well the computer and it costs much for my payment from work. I came to the Internet of cafe and asked that to me created the address e-mail that I from it could write you the letter. And here now you can see my letter.
As jonahedwards noted, "It's like being wooed by Don Quixote."Only I ask you at once look at a photo esteem the letter think and solve precisely you would like with me correspondence to me the friend to me is not necessary I and which is ready for serious relations will be necessary to love which MAN and creation of a family I is possible I ask you very fragile person and if serious relations write to me tell to me are not necessary to you that is not present I will understand.
I saw the world's most terse license plate the other day. It looked something like this:
Because it was on an SUV, I'm going to uncharitably assume that it's an HTML reference.
I had just decided to put a hold on yarn buying until next fall when I saw a WSJ article about this little yarn csa called Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. How cool is that? I'm weak. I bought a fall share. I wish there was more information how the average amount and type of yarn that you got with your share, but I figured it was worth trying it out. I'll report back when I get my share next fall.
I have a handful of the honey oatmeal stouts left from this winter. We were eating smores the other night, and I thought a stout sounded good with them, so I cracked one open. This is another example of my carbonation woes. While my nut brown ale ranges from being undercarbonated to well carbonated, this batch ranged from being well carbonated to being way overcarbonated. I have no idea.
On the recommendation of my friend Salt, I repurposed the blue and green Malabrigo from the Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks scarf that I wasn't happy with for a One Row Scarf, and I have to say it was a very good move. It's actually a very normal length scarf, but when I told my daughter I was making a One Row Scarf she said "That will be a very short scarf if it's only one row".
The colors in the Malabrigo made a very nice diamond pattern except for right at one end where it sort of pooled together in one spot.
This pattern is great. It's simple and adds some visual interest to the yarn without being too busy or complicated. Following Salt's lead, I cast on 34 stitches and knit on size 10 needles. I used just shy of 2 skeins of Lime-Blue Malabrigo worsted weight. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this scarf when I started knitting it, but I had one man in the family that I hadn't decided on a scarf pattern for Christmas yet, and decided this would be a great scarf for him. I didn't feel like modeling the scarf myself, and I didn't figure Dave would go for modeling it for me, so I got Mr. Dog to do it.
I love this scarf. It's so simple and so soft and squishy. Even when I started this scarf, I still thought I would go back to the Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks scarf for my Malabrigo Oro Y Vino yarn, but I've been won over by this pattern and will be making a One Row Scarf with it instead.
