Jahdra - now we ned a pic of one or more of the kitties knitting
Refer to rosie’s Groundhog Day reference. The way Bill Murray knew each ‘day’ was the same day over and over and over and over and over and over again was that when his alarm went off, it was always “I Got You Babe”
It’s late, it’s cold, I had beer. I’m a going ta bed.
The Kid’s home tonight, yay! She works in the morning at da mawl, and figures it’s easier to just stay here and go from here instead of from school. Same distance really, but much nicer to stay home with her cat Marty to keep her feets warm.
Have you done much cable work, Jahdra? I got hooked on it years ago when I was in Ireland; I bought myself so much yarn while I was actually out on the Aran Islands that it cost me a small fortune to ship it home to myself, but it was still cheaper than buying it in the US. I’ve done several sweaters with lovely complex cables. I also used my Aran yarn to make myself a tree of life-patterned sweater that is insanely warm – I knitted it on size 2 needles, and can wear it as winter outerwear without much difficulty. Now I’m moving in the opposite direction and knitting little teensy lacy stuff. I don’t know why I go through these different kicks, but it keeps it new.
Socks I haven’t tried yet, however. I should see if they offer a sock class here – although I’d probably make the instructor crazy since I’m left-handed and do everything mirror image to normal knitters.
Those beads look really nice! Do show us a picture when you have the bag completed.
This is the extent of my cable work so far. Well, there was that one sweater, but I’m not posting that. It was my first sweater, and you can tell. Oh, how you can tell. That’s why I’m taking the finishing class at Stitches. But cabling is fun. I’m slowly working my way up to more complex knitting. I saw an Alice Starmore sweater that I just loved the other day, very intricate, but a solid color. It was stunning. Well, everything she does is amazing, but I’m definitely not there yet. But that one sweater looked almost within my reach.
Cables are surprisingly easy – once you figure out the pattern, it just flows right off the needles because you can see where it’s going and what needs to happen next. I’ve worked quite intricate cables far, FAR more easily than that stupid tree of life sweater, where I had to look at the pattern Every. Single. Time I repeated it.
I got a book some years back with a whole assortment of Aran and Jersey and Guernsey projects and have made several of them, and one of these days I’ll probably go back and do some more. I love the classic patterns that never go out of style.
Is that Alice Starmore pattern one of the ones on this page? She has some lovely things, classic patterns with gorgeous details – I love the neckline on the “Fern” design at the bottom of the page!
Well, 100 skeins should be good at any rate…
But to try another example, if you want to add every number from 1 and 10, you just start adding from either end:
1 + 10 = 11
2 + 9 = 11
3 + 8 = 11
4 + 7 = 11
5 + 6 = 11
They all equal 11. So if you know what one pair adds up to (11) you just multiply by half the total number of pairs there would be (half of ten) to get the answer (55.)
Yes, that’s her. You can always tell, she uses insane amounts of color in very intricate patterns in very fine yarn. Her patterns are definitely heirloom. (Non-knitters, heirloom = Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Cast On Here.) Most of her books are out of print, and thus outrageously expensive.
I just got my copy of Interweave Knits, and I really like the Cable-Down Raglan . It’s knit in the round from the top down, with only two small underarm sleeve seams.
Yawn. OK, I am back up, coffee is being consumed. Is it Monday yet?
I’m supposed to be writing some courses.
I hate the structure. Every course I’d ever written was a single .doc, perhaps with slides on the side. For these we have to prepare:
- a series of slides which are the main document,
- separate .doc for each demonstration,
- separate .doc for each exercise.
Then all the documents get embedded into another .doc
Lots of things have to be done in triplicate, but the formats are completely different so you can’t copy-paste. And the structure is no way conductive to the worker using the course materials as handbooks. This company teaches the most boring courses I’ve ever gone through and now I have to write them! When I’d been here for a couple weeks and still didn’t have a computer or email, they had me in classes for 3 days. 3 days of slides of screenshots of white screens over a white background… I don’t even remember what those courses were about!
don’t wanna… I wanna do work that’s practical, dangit…
That doesn’t pay as well.
Oh, is that why they’re paying me this ridiculous salary, because the work is supposed to suck?
Guess I should try thinking of England, but England never did much for me.
Yay! I got sent home early from work yesterday because of the bad weather. What a joke! I can leave at 4pm anyway because my contract says I work on our flexible hours scheme so I have to be in the office from 10-12 and 2-4 but outside of that I can work at whatever time I like, as long as I do my contracted number of hours. So they let us go at 3.30pm instead. Woo. And Hoo.
Getting home was easy enough, I caught a train from the Uni station that was apparently running 2hrs late. That got me to the mainline station, where I caught a local service that was only running 1.5hrs late.
So I actually made it home about an hour earlier than I’d usually get in. That made the cats happy, they got fresh food and treats earlier than expected, and (are you paying attention, Swampus?) I did two hours of study-reading! How good am I?
It’s supposed to snow again today but so far no sign of the white stuff. Tonight I’m supposed to be going to the gym but I might sacrifice that in favour of more studying because going to the gym involves getting the 4" of snow off the car and probably scraping off the ice underneath, and shovelling the snow off the frontage so I can get the car out onto the road. No, in some ways, I’d rather study.
In other news, we had a letter yesterday from National Grid saying they are coming to disconnect our gas supply on 26th Feb because we had a gas meter removed over 12 months ago without having it replaced. I’d love to know how they worked that one out, the same gas meter’s been in the house all the years I’ve been living here, and the gas supplier sent a little man out to read the meter a few months ago so I don’t know how he managed to do that if we’d had it removed.
Stooopit people.
BooFae I am proud of ya! Here, have a cookie. See everyone… doing your work gets you rewards. 
doggio I’ll relay that info to ACBG. Maybe he can explain [sub]or demonstrate[/sub] his naughty ways.
kai the poms are so cute! One of these days I think I’m going to get myself a doggy again. A pom might be nice.
Jah I have no idea why, but I <snerk> everytime I read sock knitting. I’m so weird!
Tigs all that knitting is not getting in the way of you getting that task done is it, young lady? :dubious:
I guess the world is a little bit safer today. Last night in my EMT class, I learned to take blood pressure the old-fashioned way (I have a put-on-the-cuff-and-push-the-button home unit). What amazed me was how hard it was to find the artery with the stethoscope. I came away convinced that either I was deaf, or the girl that was my partner was really a vampire and therefore had no pulse.
The weekend is 9 hours away. w00t!
FCMom, I gotta hear what happens to Idiot Stupidhead come Monday. With an ego like that, he’d be perfectly cast as a crash and burn whacko astronaut…
Hugs, backslaps, and shouted greetings for the hangovers as appropriate to the rest of you.
C’mon, SNOW, dammit!
The poms are very cute, kai, and so is Skiffman. Your cats are adorable, Jahdra, and I really really like that scarf.
Yawn. Up. Time for tea, and then frantic baking and laundry. I’m doing focaccia and pizza and maybe four loaves of bread. Maybe five. I think Aerin missed me. She’s behind me on the chair, meeping softly.
The poms are cute, the kitties are cute, the skiffman’s cute…it’s turning into a pink, fluffy, cute kind of day. And, oh look, it’s snowing too!
yawn
Is it Friday yet?
Oh! Well I’ll be dipped. It is FRIIIIIIIIIDAAAAAY!
Got me a coffee. Got me a star fruit. They even had my heavenly danish! It’s even not too bad outside – I’m almost tempted to say nice, at least compared to the last week and change. Helluva nice cap to the week, all things considered. And frankly I think there’s plenty enough snow. Sorry LiLi, but if you want more snow I’ve got lots I can send you. Some of it still like-new!
I sent back the scammy counterfeit memory card last night. Damn thing cost me $12 for the cheapest trackable shipping method, just for a bubble envelope weighing a mere 280g (0.3Kg/0.6lb). Blah. I could have sent it regular mail for $1.50, but of course I have to protect myself against the “what package? I didn’t get no package” scam.
I also had to hard-reset my PocketPC because what I suspect was some ill-haved app that didn’t entirely like Windows Mobile 5 was causing memory errors and dumb crap like that. But it needed a good cleanout anyway and redoing my PDA isn’t nearly as annoying as redoing my home PC. 
Swampy - Sock knitting?
…in bed!
Kai - Cute pommies. MindWife’s mother’s neighbour has a pair of poms. They’re both quite … enthusiastic, especially when they get to go over and play with MIL’s pugs. Pugs are goofy.
We don’t have very much snow. I want knee-deep snow. I want to build snow forts, dammit! Send me all your snow!
'Lo, all.
I am jealous of the knitting…I want to learn how, but don’t have time right now. I did go to one class (at the library) last year, but cannot remember how to cast on. I also had chosen this lovely shade (or so I thought) of gray–to make a scarf. About 5 rows in, I started calling it my prison gray scarf…I hated the color; I hated the feel of the yarn (some kind of blend–NOT a nice yarn, because why would I spend money on something I wasn’t sure I could do?). I then went and got some nice variegated burgundy yarn, but in the interim, had forgotten how to knit…maybe someday.
I have lots of homework to do today–so I am off to do it. I have to work the weekend (ugh and double ugh). I need to start looking for a new job soon. I intend to quit in May and I’m sticking with that.
4" of snow can shut London down? Do the terrorists know? <ducks and runs>
You can tell the terrorists if you like, I don’t live anywhere near London!