Wednesday, April 29, 2009

I'm a riot.

Sometimes I amaze myself.

For instance, today I opened Google News feeds and gasped when I [mis]read the following headline:

President Obama remarks on Specter changing Panties

Not to be outdone I received the following caution this afternoon:

Swine Flu No-No

Labels: ,

Monday, April 27, 2009

Knitting is Science

Well ok... more like crochet is mathematics.



Thanks to a former colleague for the heads up!

Labels: , ,

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Lambies, Part Deux

Just in case the picture of me with the lamb wasn't enough, here's a short video that Sarah and I made:

Labels:

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Knitapalooza

My knitting has been very (frustratingly) sporadic of late due to my weird retail hours. So it was with great glee that I finished my last retail shift (ever I hope!) this past Thursday and headed out for a knitting weekend with my friends.


This weekend was the Sunflower Knitters Guild's "Sunflower Spring Knitaway (SSK)" down in Harveyville, KS at The Harveyville Project. It was a fabulous weekend! We arrived in Harveyville late on Friday. After delicious hors d'ouvres and sweets, we traded/sold/swapped some yarn and headed up to bed.

Because the location was an old school building, the bedrooms were old classrooms. Lunch was in the basement cafeteria, and we did lots of knitting and spinning while sitting in a wide circle in the old gym.


As for me, I took a few dye classes. The first was an acid dye class, where I created a beautiful semi-solid skein of 1500 yards of Shetland Lace. I combined colors like Violet and Crimson, sometimes adding a little black. I hope to use this to make a wonderful lacy shawl.








I also took the Kool-Aid dying class. Here I decided to have a little fun and dyed 770 yards of Kona Superwash sport weight in Berry Blue and Orange. It's bright and fun and I LOVE it.






While out in Harveyville we got to mingle with the chickens and the sheep and the lambs. That's right, I went into the sheep enclosure and held one of the new baby lambs, Ronnie. She's only a few weeks old and so sweet!

Last, but certainly not least I got quite a bit of knitting done this weekend. I did some that I can't picture yet, but I did manage to finish a great pair of socks that have been on my needles forever.


The Pattern: Seaweed Socks by Wendy Johnson

The Needles: US 1's

The Yarn: Trekking XXL in Green (I like to call it Seafoam!)

The Verdict: I liked these socks. They kept getting pushed aside for other projects, which is why they took so long to finish, but they were a fun, simple knit and I love how they turned out!


That's all the news for here. I arrived home this afternoon about 5pm and I'm getting to bed early because I start the new job tomorrow. More to come!

Labels: , ,

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Pictoral Update

I've been out of the blog loop for a bit, but I've been busy and happy!


Last weekend Wes and I started experimenting with mead. We're trying new flavors this month: Apple Cider, Ginger/Vanilla/Peach and Blueberry Pomegranate. We'll let you know in a month or so which one turns out best!

This weekend we headed down to my in-laws'. Little did I know that the Easter Bunny (and my mother-in-law) love showing a 30 year old Jewish girl what she has missed all her life. There's dying eggs:






And of course... there was an Easter basket with chocolate:

Labels: ,

Friday, April 03, 2009

Epiphany

One of the things I love about knitting as a craft and a hobby is that I am continually learning and discovering new things. Part of the reason that I find knitting the same item twice to be boring sometimes has to do with the fact that I enjoy the challenge of a new pattern or a new technique.

Right now I am in the beginning stages of crafting an afghan for Wes and me. It is going to be a good year-long project most likely, and involves a very large and complicated chart (held together with packing tape!). Tonight, after already knitting 30 some-odd rows (out of 500) I had a minor epiphany.

Most knitters knit stitches from the left needle onto the right needle. That is, they insert the right needle into a stitch on the left needle, work the stitch and transfer the resulting new stitch to the right needle. Because of this, most patterns and especially most lace patterns (in charts) are worked from right to left.

I learned how to knit from a right-handed knitter, but I am left-handed. This means that I insert the left needle into stitches on the right needle, create the new stitch and transfer it to the left needle. Now for years I have been knitting charts from right to left, with the resulting pattern being the mirror opposite of how most people finish the garment. It has just occurred to me in the last few days that I could knit charts from left to right and produce the exact same pattern, rather than the mirror opposite. I know... DUH, but it's a major epiphany and excites me to no end!

****

In other news, I realize that in my happiness yesterday I forgot to mention a few details. I don't normally discuss work on here in specific terms for fear of being Dooced, but I will say this. I am extremely happy about this job because it provides me an opportunity to continue the kind of work that I was doing with USC; namely to help brilliant researchers do their research. As of April 20, I will be joining the Office of the General Counsel at the Stowers Institute for Biomedical Research.

Labels:

Thursday, April 02, 2009

We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast....

With a special announcement:

I GOT THE JOB!

Labels: