Soothing Garter Stitch

Work is very stressful and dealing with contractors for the new-to-us condo is stressful but in a positive way. I feel like I can't deal with anything more complicated than garter stitch and it's Malabrigo to the rescue!

I have a feeling that the majority of the next few months of posts will be about knitting and the new condo, aspects of my life that are about moving forward, that are fun and exciting for me. There are so many other things that are stressing me out that I don't want to spend the time blogging about unhappy things when that time and effort could be spend doing things that make me happy.

So, here's a pic of the Sean Scully Malabrigo afghan (scroll down) to date. Instead of black and white, I'm using orange and yellow, specifically, Tigerlily and Pollen, with some KnitPicks Merino Bare. And I'm adding an off-set strip of purple and grey, specifically Purple Mystery and Pearl, to the bottom. And the rest will be big green and little blue vertical stripes. Perhaps I should sketch it out, but instead, here's picture showing roughly where the elements will be:

Close-ups of the the pieces that are done or mostly done:

Basically, I'm holding 2 strands together and knitting on size 10.5 US needles. Malabrigo is kettle-dyed and so some skeins will be more solid, and others show more variation in color intensity. You can really see that in the purple above. I ran out of the darker, more solid purple, so went to Knitch to find something comparable. (Knitch doesn't sell Malabrigo worsted, but does sell the silk/merino DK weight. The Needle Nook does sell Malabrigo worsted, but was out of the purple.) I picked up 2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay in Aster, a purple that matched very well.

Knitch has a huge selection of Noro yarns and as much as I've seen on other blogs about Noro, I've never worked with it. I've heard they're scratchy. Considering that I'm surrounding myself with the ultrasoft Malabrigo, I wasn't interested in working with anything scratchy.

An aside, on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me last week, Mo Rocha made a crack about handmade sweaters always being itchy and this week, he made an apology because the knitting community contacted them to protest (the words knitting community made the audience laugh. I swear, we get no respect). They also mentioned Ravelry.

However, I found some Noro with high cotton content and walked away with not one, but two skeins of Noro: Taiyo in color 2 (grey, green, and peach) and Furisode in color 1 (grey, orange and lime green):

Clearly, I have cast on for another project -- a center top-down triangular shawl, garter stitch, on size 9 needles. I'm telling you, I can't deal with anything more complicated than that.

The peach from the Taiyo will echo the orange from the Furisode, and the lime green in the Furisode will echo the bright green in the Taiyo. That's serendipity because I sure didn't plan that when I bought the yarn.

In other knitting news, I finished the commissioned baby blanket: Basically it's one strand of blue and one of white Cotton Tots and one strand of navy blue Cotton Classic, using size 11 needles, cast on about 100 stitches and knit stockingnette and reverse stockingnette to make a square with in a square effect. Finish with three strands of Simfonia navy blue yarn held together and single crochet the border with a size N needle until bored. Took me about a month.

I call it the commissioned blanket because it's for a client of Husband's. Today, Husband was at the office working on a case for that client and I was at the condo with the client's husband who we will most likely hire to lay down our bamboo floor. I gave them the baby blanket today for their new grandson.

Closed!

Today, we finally closed on the condo! Woo hoo!





Currently, my commute looks like this. That's the Atlanta skyline below. The exit sign says Six Flags over Georgia. That's how far out of town I live. In my commute, I start way out on the west side, drive through the city, and out the other side, to my office.



Yeah, 26 miles/45 minutes one-way.

At my new place, the commute will be only 10 miles. But I'll be using surface streets, not the freeways, so it'll still take me some time, about 30 minutes. Yay! If I choose the right route, I can easily swing by my favorite yarn shop, Knitch in Virginia-Highlands. Double yay!

And I have options for a pottery place: Callanwolde (near Virginia-Highlands), Chastain which is way on the north side, or Mudfire, which is 10 minutes from the office. Hmmm. But it'll be a while before I start pottery again. Need to figure out all the house stuff first.

The condo has a terrible mold problem, so tomorrow, we're having a mold remediation service come in. Once that's done, we'll have the HVAC people in. Then the duct cleaners. Then the flooring people. Then the painters. Then the roller blind people. Then we move in! Yay!

And at some point in there, we'll buy a refrigerator. And figure out what to do with our current house.

All that's yet to come. For now, I'm just celebrating that after 3 months, we finally, finally, actually got to close!

Sean Scully Malabrigo Afghan

I gave in. This weekend, I cast on for my Sean Scully Malabrigo Afghan. Details on my Ravelry page.

I've posted about Sean Scully before here (scroll down) just about a year ago. And I'll be using the Malabrigo yarns shown in that same post too.

The afghan is based on "10.2.93" and have started the vertical piece in a combo of yellow, white, and orange. I ran out of the yellow yarn (Pollen) and had to go get some more. Picked up a skein of Pearl while I was at it, for a purple strip that I'm going to add too.

Mmmmm. Malabrigo. Can't resist.

New fave blog (Snark-tastic!)

There's a new blog on my blogroll: Cleolinda. It's like a rabbit hole I've fallen in and haven't found the way out.

I found Cleolinda by searching the New York Times for "Twilight." Yeah, I've fallen down that hole too. So the Freakonomics guy on NYT wrote how he was at the airport with nothing to read, so got Twilight and got sucked in too. One of the commenters pointed to Cleolinda's chapter by chapter snark-tastic summaries and they are hilarious.

As much as she makes fun of them, her blog is full of Twilight stuff, so she isn't a complete hater.

She has a zillion sites online, it seems. Her Movies in 15 Minutes are gold. She also has a site called the Secret Life of Dolls, where her LOTR, Twilight, and other movie action figures have their own dramas. It is, again, hilarious.

(Note to self: must find another adjective, other than hilarious.)

Anyway, her Twilight reviews and Movies in 15 Minutes had me laughing outloud.

Apparently Cleolinda's been online for so long, there's a ton of past posts to read. Fun!

It couldn't last

Project monogamy is just not for me. I've been working on a baby blanket that was commissioned by one of Husband's clients. She offered to pay but of course I turned that down. How would I price it? She's a gatekeeper of sorts and has the ability to keep referring cases to Husband. So it'll be a freebie (as always).

The baby blanket is all cotton and knit on size 11 US needles. It's flying by and great mindless knitting, especially when speed reading through the Twilight series of books. Now the books are done and the baby blanket is no longer enough. Plus it's too big to keep carrying around in my purse.

So last night I started a beret, using a purple varigated Manos del Uruguay yarn. This will be my portable project and will replace the beret I lost last week.

In condo news, we're a chapter 34 of the on-going saga. After some last minute revelations about a huge lien on the condo, it seems we may finally be able to close next week, about 12 weeks later than the original closing date. I'll believe it when I get the keys in my hands.

bitten by gauge and other things

I knitted up about 100 yards of yarn on Best Friend's sweater before I realized that gauge was wrong.

I'm making another Emerald. Since I made one for Sister last year, I went ahead and cast on with the same yarn (Lamb's Pride Bulky) and the same size needle (US10). The sweater's knitted in the round from the bottom up and starts with 20 rows of ribbing. Partway through the ribbing I realized that I cast on 114 sts and not 118 but I'd make up for it when I knit on the shawl collar.

It wasn't until I knit about an inch of stockingnette that I checked the gauge and realized that it 4 stitches to the inch instead of 3 stitches. That's a big difference when we're talking 114 (or 118) stitches around.

I did a swatch on US size 13 and got 2.5 stitches to the inch, plus it was rather open so wouldn't be quite as warm as intended. The mohair content didn't bloom enough to make it a solid fabric.

It looks like I'll have to use size 11s but both of my size 11 needles are in use, in a commissioned baby blanket and a take-along shawl. I could either buy another needle, or finish one of those projects. I'm opting to finish the baby blanket.

So sorry Best Friend! Your sweater has been preempted by a baby blanket, again.

In other news, I lost my handknit beret, which I think of as my Obama beret, since I made it with the trip to the inauguration in mind. I think I left it at the state capitol when I went yesterday for a By the People lobby day on immigrant rights.

I really liked the yarn. It was Sheep Shop 2 in the G43 colorway (lovely name, eh?). It's like Manos del Uruguay and costs about the same, but softer and with less yardage. I bought the yarn from Lakeside Fibers in Madison, Wis, using a gift certificate given to me by Mother-in-law.

Last night I pulled out a skein of purple Manos with the idea of cranking out another hat but worked on the baby blanket instead. The receipient is waiting for it and I do have other hats. Plus, it's easier to do the blanket while reading the Twilight series.

Yes, I've been bitten by the Twilight bug. They're such fast and fun reads. I'm in Team Jacob and love that part of Book 4 is written from his point of view instead of Bella's. The sociologist in me is really interested in finding out how his culture(s) work. Plus he's got a better sense of humor and more light-hearted than Edward. Even the titles of his chapters are funny.

And lastly, Husband and I traded in our cellphones and computer for iPhones. I love it. I have been posting pretty easily onto Facebook from the iPhone but for some reason can't blog from it.

The Big Day

On Jan 20, 2009 I got up at 6am in the predawn and put on all my clothes and then some. Walked with many, many, many others towards the National Mall.

This was a close as we ever got to the Capitol. We were closer to the Washington Monument than the Capitol. That's the Smithonian castle to the right.

We staked out our place near a Jumbotron by 8am. Sister decided to take a nap while we waited.

By 8:30am I could no longer feel my toes and we still had 2 hours until the inauguration. I thought "a Jumbotron's nothing more than a big TV. There's a big TV (not as big but big) at the apt. Let's go back to the apt." So Sister and I left, leaving our friends. Here's our view looking towards the Wash monument and way off in the distance to the right is the Lincoln memorial.

We had breakfast and coffee to warm up. When we left the restaurant, there were still huge numbers of people streaming toward the Mall. I was a bit surprised. I guess in my head, I thought of the Mall experience as being over and it was for me, but not for them. Everyone was so happy and excited!

We walked 2 miles back to the apt and watched the footage on CNN. The pictures of the entire mall just filled with people all the way back to the Lincoln Memorial was just amazing. I still get a bit verklempt thinking about it.

So, so, so, so many of us have been waiting for this day and here it is, "At Last."