Tagged!

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.

-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

OK, I was actually tagged the other day. Monday, maybe? And I was a good participant in the Dish Rag Tag and I sat down and knit knit knit and got that dish rag in the mail the very next day. But then I was on call, and posting sort of escaped. So belated. But here we go . . .

You've heard of this fun relay called Dish Rag Tag? It may sound a little crazy to outsiders, but it's a fun relay. I got my relayed package from Kathi in Washington (blogless, I think) and got the lovely dishcloth you see below.I knit so fast I forgot to take a photo of the one I knit for Jannett - we'll just have to wait until it pops up on her blog!

Only one more stop after her . . .

Another UFO

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it. -E. B. White

Quietly, sometimes behind the scenes, but so far I'm 8/8 in keeping up with the UFO Resurrection Challenge of 2007. (The fact that I just started 7 new projects is so immaterial. They haven't had time to become UFOs yet.) At any rate, I've got one for August.

It seems pretty impossible here to tell what's going on at all, but this is actually two things being frogged - Green Gable and the Ballet T-Shirt. They're both attempted in the same yarn, so now it's a bunch of purple worsted weight cotton back into the stash. I've blogged about my Green Gable issues here and my Ballet T-Shirt here. Both were languishing in indecision, and it got to a point where I doubted I could ever overcome my doubts on either. So even if it is yarn back into the stash, better that than wasting my knitting time.

Why Blogging (and Knitting) Just Got Better

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded
if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
-Jeff Raskin

Unrelated to all the birthday goodness (and goodies), I've got some fun reasons that blogging (and knitting) just got a lot better.

My new blogging tool:

Definitely a Mac.
My new knitting accompaniment: In truth, I probably won't be able to start HP7 until next week when I'm out of the ICU, but I'm pretty excited. I had listened to the first 7 on tape, and had a bit of an internal debate about whether to listen or read this final installment. In the end I decided to listen, and my CDs just arrived. All the better for knitting along.

Ironic, isn't it then, that I just finished my project for the Hogwarts Sock Swap Year Two?

A Birthday Weekend in Pictures

It takes a long time to grow young.
-Pablo Picasso

If you, hypothetically speaking, happen to be on call in the ICU on your birthday, it's nice to have a certain husband step up and make your weekend as good as it can be anyway.
It can include rosesan office-friendly coffee maker
getting to open all my birthday packages early (hey - I'm on call tomorrow!)
the beach (showing off a new pedicure)and even a little beach knitting!
Yup, the big ol' 27 tomorrow. Should be fun. But I'm sure you'll excuse me if I go get ready for a purportedly romantic dinner at an undisclosed location.

Too Cute for Words

When I grow up I want to be a little boy. -Joseph Heller

I haven't only been starting things lately; there's been a little finishing around here, too. (Just a little, of course. Nothing to upset the natural order of things.)

There's something about the idea of little boys in vests. And since this one could be made with some stash sock yarn I had lying around, resistance was futile.
Little Boy Blue Pattern: Baby Cable Vest from Debbie Bliss' Simply Baby
Yarn: Fortissima Cotton Fingering Weight in denim (a light blue) and a bit of white cotton leftovers for the edgings
Needles: US 3 Addis for the bulk and US2 Brittany Birch dpns for the sleeves Notes: I think this is the 12 month size, and it took not much more than 50g of the blue, much less than I expected. Also, I added the white contrast edges for fun, and because I had the white. Why not?
Best Thing About This Project: I liked it so much, I immediately cast on for some matching two-tone booties from the same book. Irresistible!

That Knitting I Was Talking About

The best way I know to win an argument is to start by being in the right.
-Lord Halisham

Knitting instead of blogging sure paid off - in a fit of startitis! Now I have a huge collection of new projects. Want to see?

First there was winding. Then the pile.And then the projects. Many of them will appear on their own shortly, but I loved the way this photo looked (sideways). It's a possible beginning to the Vintage Beaded Gloves from Handknit Holidays, if the gauge turns out OK.

That was an excellent day off. Since then I've done nothing but be on call or post-call. A nap is looking great right now . . .

A Good Mail Day

The horse knew the route to each house because he had done it so long. What (the mailman) would do, while he was driving, is the horse would just go, and, at every stop, he would read the mail. He would read everybody's mail while he was delivering it.
-Robert Patterson

Thursday was a very good mail day.

The Expected:Because who can resist a KnitPicks sale? I also got Lace Style with it.

The Unexpected:From my sock pal, Michelle of The Sweet Sheep. She made a lovely - and perfectly fitting - pair of Cookie A's Flicker socks in a Sweet Georgia yarn. (A better photo is here on her blog.) It's like the Gucci of the sock knitting cyberworld. And they're gorgeous, with lovely little extras like yarn and wool wash.

Three cheers for Sockapalooza!

Knitting Wins

Life is choices.
-my high school biology teacher

I was going to blog today. No, really, I was. But it's my day off for the week (before my second consecutive Saturday call), so I'm going to knit instead. Because I can. Because I've been too tired to knit for two straight days.

Later I will be back to show you, in no particular order, my awesome Sockapalooza package, some yarn I bought, the cutest baby vest ever, and whatever I cast on today.

Given the choice, you know you'd do the same and knit instead of blogging, right?

No Socks for Me

First things first, second things never.
-Shirley Conran

I don't think anything like this has ever happened before. I had no socks on the needles. Exactly zero pairs. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Not a one. Not even in the deepest darkest UFO pile.
Monkeys, done. Jaywalkers, done (photo coming soon). Cablenet, frogged. And somehow I ended up at this dark lonely no-sock place. Even my plans to cast on for my Hogwarts Year 2 swap were stalled when I realized that my swapee has many allergies and the tweedy yarn I had planned would just not do.

So I did what any knitter would do. I put off my studying, editing my paper, and even eating dinner until I sat down and ordered some new yarn for the Hogwarts Swap. After dinner my head was clearer and I realized that I had a stash yarn that would work perfectly for my pal, and cast on immediately.

What a relief. It has never happened before. And it shouldn't happen since.

Surf's Up On The 101

All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter.

-Joseph Addison

If you can at all manage it, I recommend marrying into a crafty family. My sister-in-law has been visiting, which coincided nicely with my Friday off (prior to a Saturday call). That husband o' mine had to work, so we took ourselves up the 1010 to Encinitas for a little yarn shopping. I've posted before my thoughts on the two yarn shops up there, but you have to admit that any yarn stores are better than no yarn stores. For all the hours we spent browsing, our purchases were rather restrained. Scarf Style for her, and a single skein of a fingering weight alpaca-silk blend for me. I've been admiring the Vintage Beaded Gloves from Handknit Holidays for too long. San Diego weather or no, it's just time to make them.

The other side benefit to a yarn expedition with a woman who lives in Calgary, is that I got to discover just how much she likes mittens. She's even promised to be suprised when one of these appears in her Christmas package.

Dish Rag Queen

You make the beds, you wash the dishes,
and six months later you have to start all over again.
-Joan Rivers

Have you been following the Dish Rag Tag? It's the best of summer team competitive knitting - fun, competitive, not too hot, and even inexpensive to participate in. As a prelimiary event, Emily ran a contest for the enviable title "Dish Rag Team" and provided the prize. Imagine my surprise when I won! Is it strange that I've been designated a dish rag queen and yet this is currently the only dish rag cotton in my house right now?

Live!

And that's the news from Lake Woebegon,
where all the women are strong,
all the men are good looking,
and all the children are above average.
-Garrison Keillor

We interrupt our regularly scheduled lacksidasical summer blogging to bring you (nearly) live, real-time knitting and blogging. Will wonders never cease?

And what is the cause of such unprecedented blogging? A new and exciting project.

The Baby Cable Vest from Debbie Bliss' Simply Baby. It is just all things cuteness and light. Too much fun. So much fun that I'm ignoring the inconvenient fact that there are as many stitches in the back of this as there were in my last adult sweater. That would be the fingering weight speaking . . .

It would also be a rather stark contrast to my current adult sweater project - Green Gable. Am I the only person who doesn't like knitting in in the round from the top down? First of all, I don't dislike seeming. But my big problem from the top-down method is actually what everyone likes best - the fit question. I find it easy to hold up a sweater piece and measure or compare to ensure a good fit. But putting it on waste yarn is a huge pain, and I still can't really tell. I alternate knitting rows and wanting to frog them. At least Rachel found a good solution to the neck roll.

Hey, Hey I'm a Monkey

Then I saw her face,
Now I'm a believer.
-The Monkees

The Sockapalooza Socks are in the mail. While they wisk across the country to their intended recipient, we can all admire the glory that is the Monkey pattern. I had been enjoying the many pairs popping up all over blogland, but I didn't truely understand until I made a pair of my own. Now I'm a believer.

Monkey Socks
Pattern: Seriously? Someone still needs the link?
Yarn: Ball and Skein handpainted sock yarn in Mosaic
Needles: I described my fancy trick here - I used 2 US 1 dpns and 3 US 2s
Notes: I obviously went with the picot cuff, but no other mods
Best Thing About This Project: Now that this pair is done, I get to cast on for a second pair!

Random Saturday

Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty.

All the reasons I've been following off the the edge of the known blogging-knitting-Ravelry world:

1. We're newly-weds. My new favorite response to people who ask me how married life is going: The first month is so good that we're going for another one!
2. Work is crazy. I must have been delusional when I thought that residency would be easier than internship. I now have to carry three pagers - mine, the ICU admission pager, and the Code pager. Not only do my scrub pants keep threatening to fall down, but the pagers even go off.
3. Knitting has been, er, intermittent.
   
4. I did, however, finish my Sockapalooza socks. But I was on call on send-off day, so I'll be mailing them Monday.
5. It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you live in San Diego people like to visit you. My mom was here last weekend, and my sister-in-law is coming today. She's a knitter who just finished her first sock (a Christmas stocking). How fun!
6. I adore the Fall Interweave Knits. I really want to make that Kathy Zimmerman big cabled sweater and cozy up in New England. Since I can't, I'm going to knit tweedy cabled socks for my new Hogwarts Second Year Pal.
7. No spoilers - I haven't read HP7 yet.
8. I'm slowly-but-surely catching my stride here, so regular blogging will re-commence shortly. Socapalooza, Dish Rag Tag, Project Roundup, Green Gable Progress. It's all coming!