Thursday, May 31, 2007

PSA

YAI - CPC


If any of you will be in Central Park this Saturday morning, pop by the bandshell and come see me. I'm volunteering at information booth at the YAI Central Park Challenge. It's a 5k run/3k walk for people with Intellectual Disabilities/Developmental Disabilities. Yeah, I know it's a shameless plug, but it is a fun day - fingers crossed it will stay dry.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Meme

There is knitting going on in the house of Schrodinger, however, not so much of the finishing kind of knitting. So instead of boring you with WIP shots, I thought I would bore you with 7 random things about myself :) Thanks to Gabriella for the tag.

I'm the product of a RAF family, I spent my childhood not living anywhere for more than 3 years at a time. By the time I was 13 I'd spend 3 tours of 3 years in Germany - yet I've not been back since, although this should change at Christmas :) I miss Germany, I have many happy memories there.

Just before we moved back to England I had a memorable trip to Berlin with my school. We stayed in the Olympic stadium. I learned so much on that trip, it was my first realization of the horrors of what had happened during WWII. I also wrote my name on the Berlin Wall, and listened to the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack almost endlessly throughout the trip.

When I was a teenager I tried my hand at a few different crafts, lacemaking, screenprinting, dried and live flower-arranging. I was lucky that my school was also a 'community college' for people in the town, so they offered these classes to the pupils in the school for free. As time has gone on I've also tried jewelry making, hemp jewelry, candle-making & sculpting, wood-working, metalwork, and the usual paining and drawing, bead and wire sculpture, pottery, origami.

I have a fork-lift truck license. Mr B found it when unpacking last week, and I looked at it and remembered the days. Since it was many years ago, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't how to work one now.

Origami was my last obsession before knitting took over, I folded 1,000 cranes for my grandmother, who - when she received them, acted as though I was quite mad - why on earth would I give her 1,000 of these paper things? She never really got my explanation. She has since passed on and my cousin inherited them, she loves them. Not satisfied with just 1,000 for my grandmother, I decided to make an additional 1,000 for myself and Mr B. They sit in our living room in a large glass cylinder in a beautiful rainbow of colours.

Since my position at work has changed, and I'm on the phone helping people much more, I have developed new pet peeves. For example, I've recently realized that I can get very frustrated when someone says "I hear you" while you're in the middle of a sentence - what's the point?

Over the last few years I've developed this adolescent/childish thing whereby, when I hear people say "duty" I tend to giggle. I think that this is because it's pronounced so differently here in the US, that it just sounds like "doodie" from the mouths of so many to me.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

200 posts and still going.

Well, I have a great many WIPS going on, so the basket is getting some good use :) It's basically like this, "oh, I really want to try Sandra's sock pattern" (see below), "ooh, I really want to knit up that habu silk [that I had just bought] into a shawl/stole", "oooh, I finally have yarn to make the hourglass sweater I've been wanting to knit forever", "oh yes, and I must make the mother/daughter socks for my wonderful co-worker moving back to Ireland next month". And guess what? I'm still looking beyond the basket to think about the other projects I want to get my hands on. I don't think that I've ever been this ADD with my knitting before - or maybe I forget?

At the back of my mind there 2 balls of Trekking XXL that I bought in a little sale at the Point last week - they want to be on the needles, right NOW. And to top it off, this landed in my mailbox yesterday:


Isn't it pretty? It's 5% cashmere, 95% Australian Merino. A laceweight called Gentle, in "Soft Aqua Blue" from Yarn Place. This was a prize that I won from Redheadskydiver a little while back. Isn't it pretty? Now it's tickling my brain, what lace project should it be? The card made me smile too. Thanks Redheadskydiver!!! It's soft and lovely. Yes, apparently I'm on a lucky streak - maybe it's time to buy my first lotto ticket?

As a result of all this distraction, I don't really have much in the way of FO's to show, just this one sock:



Now this sock - or was it the yarn? Pissed me off on Thursday. There I was on the train, happily knitting away, and out of the blue, the damn thing decides to tell me that maybe, just maybe, it wants to try being a different sock, perhaps a Monkey...

Now you can understand the reasoning behind this thinking, while in progress, it's really hard to see the great tweed-ish pattern - kind of a confused charade. So the yarn starts to worry, it wants to be seen in it's best light after all. But then. I try it on. No, the yarn was wrong, Charade was the right pattern after all - phew! all is good again (it's true that I still have a nagging doubt, however, I'm choosing to ignore it).

Oh, and there have been some requests for apartment pictures. There is still plenty to be done here in our humble abode, but I thought I would oblige. So, here's a couple of shots of the living room to tide you over:





And my crafting space - as you can see , this is still a work in progress - AND (with Mr B there for scale) it's obvious that my stash is a reasonably small size... right?




I'm going to have go now to get ready to go out to celebrate the Mets win :)

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Luck o' the British?

I'm a lucky bugger. Look what I won at a work event today.


Packed full of pampering Bath and Body Works goodies - about half of which will be going to work tomorrow where they will be surely more appreciated. But dude! Look at that basket.

I immediately gave it a job. Doesn't it make a great WIP basket?


And, a little teaser of the apartment, I will try to take more pics of the place at the weekend - but with me going to a Mets game Saturday, not sure when that's going to happen :)

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Weekend update

First of all, I just have to say 2 words Raverly Rocks! Frecklegirl Jess and her amazing hubby built up this phenomenal site for knitters - it's a perfect way to keep a track of all your projects (finished and WIPS), your yarn, your needles/hooks, your books, patterns your want to do, even your friends. Check it out now, you can only join by invite - so contact them, your invite will be given to you in the order it was received.


While deciding what yarn to buy project to do next, I picked out the baby silk I had in my stash and knit....well.... another shedir. Maybe it's a shedir addiction, may it's that I have tried several patterns with this yarn already and it just didn't want to be them, ever


And this is how much yarn I had left - I measured it, not even 21 inches - PHEW! That was a close one.


Okay, okay, you just want the stats - so here ya go...

Pattern: Shedir cap.
Yarn: 3 balls of Elann's Baby Silk in "Deepest Black", 80% baby Alpaca, 20% silk yarn. I doubled the yarn.
Needles: Addis Turbos, 32" #3's (magic loop method).
Adaptations: I did 4 of the 5 pattern repeats, again.

As for other knitterly goodness. I got my order from WEBS this week, I cast on for a sock, more about this another time.



I also swatched.


I might be pushing this one though, I keep getting 20 stitches, as opposed to the required 19 sts per 4". While I really like the feel of this yarn, I'm not convinced about the color - as is frequently the case with reds/oranges, it's impossible to capture the true color - but I would say there is a little more 'flamingo' going on.

And the spinning has been going well.


There's a little more white in it than I would like, but I'm sure that plying will change it all. Speaking of which, I'm not sure how I'm going to tackle the plying. I got an Ashford lazy kate some time ago, didn't really think about it until I assembled it. However it's too small the bobbins of my mystery wheel - doh! I've been plying from center-pull balls, leaving me with less than perfect plying, I don't want that for this beautificous roving.

Oh! and one more picture - Absorba out in the wild. Don't you just love our bathroom's subway tiles?



Enjoy the weekend - it's a beaut here!