Ahh

Had a great vacation with Husband in southern California/Los Angeles area. It was so relaxing. First a few days in Palm Springs/Joshua Tree National Park, then a few days in Santa Monica right on the Pacific coast.

Took lots of pictures, will organize and post later. Probably over the New Year's weekend when I have no plans.

In the mean time, I'm back at the office to meet some deadlines.

ETA: Photo taken on Twenty-Nine Palms Hwy just north of Joshua Tree National Park.

East Coast Snowcopalypse

There's a huge snow storm hitting the Eastern Seaboard of the USA. My friends in DC are posting about how they're stuck in their apts. If I was stuck inside this is what I would be doing:

1. Watching back episodes of Dollhouse season 2. It's getting really good. I missed eps: Meet Jane Doe, a Love Supreme, and The Attic. This morning I watched "Stop Loss" about Victor.
2. Continue watching Angel the Series. Jasmine, as played by Gina Torres, is about to show up.
3. Knit on either the Noro Furisode Log Cabin afghan or the Easy Top Down Raglan Cardigan I just started this morning.

That should keep me occupied for, oh, the next month or so.

However, I am not stuck at home but rather at the office in Atlanta, just south of the snowcopalypse. I'll be out of the office for a week, but deadlines still loom. I've also taken home the plants in my office. They deserve a vacation in my sunny apt too, instead of sitting alone in my darkened office while I'm gone.

Knitting down the stash

Now that it's the year end, I looked at my Ravelry page and saw that I knit 23 projects this year, ranging from one-skein berets and scarves to sweaters and blankets.

Sixteen of the projects used stash yarn. That is, I used yarn I already had, not yarn that I bought for the project. I'm pretty happy about that.

I have to say, though, that some of those yarns were given to me by my friend who was giving away her late mother's stash. So I count that as stash yarn in that I didn't lay out any money it. I did use quite a bit of it to make her this out of that yarn. She said her kids, a boy and a girl, fought over who got it. So my friend broke the tie by keeping it in her bedroom.

However, I am now itching to buy another skein of Malabrigo to make a beret. It's cold and rainy today in Atlanta, the kind of day that makes you want to play with soft, colorful yarn. There's a yarn shop 10 minutes away that now carries Malabrigo...

Sunrise Circle Jacket

Done!

Details:

Yarn: Cascade 220, Color Ruby, 4 skeins and a smidge

Needle: US 7, 4.5 mm

Started: Sept 21, 2009

Finished: Dec 17, 2009

Alterations: did not sew the hems, sewed on only one button instead of 4

I took the sweater to work so I could sew the seams during lunch. I showed it to a co worker who also knits and she thought the rolled edges of the unsewn hems looked nice, like a Design Element. Hey, less finishing work is fine with me. This way, I can turn the edges back like a shawl collar.

The important thing is it's done, it's wearable, and in time for the trip to SoCal on Sunday.

And I can start on the new sweater. :)

eta: removed the button and loop. don't like the way it pulls and puckers. will use a shawl pin instead. eventually will also rip out -- again-- and reseam the right side. the seaming there is tricky because the back is knit back and forth, but the sides are curved and so the rows don't match exactly. the fronts are a little longer than the back so you're supposed to "ease in any extra fullness" as the instructions say. and that's all it says.

Vacation knitting

In a few days, Husband and I will be off to Southern California for a vacation to mark our 10th wedding anniversary. There's a way for me to blog via iPhone, but I don't think I will. I prefer typing on a full size keyboard.

I had knit the Sunrise Circle Jacket to wear on this trip, but haven't finished seaming and hemming it. I'll take it on the plane with me and do the seaming and hemming on the plane. Then I'll be able to wear it while there. It won't have buttons, but I do have a shawl pin to use.

I've got several projects on the needles, including 2 scarves. I'll take one probably the triangular scarf because that's more mindless than the Noro multidirectional scarf. More than once I forgot to stop the short rows at the right place and had to unknit. The other WIP is a big blanket. Not portable.

I also have a hankering to start another top-down raglan cardigan, maybe another Hermia. Or a Fair Isle cardigan. Or Cosmicpluto's Easy Topdown Raglan Sweater. I have 3 skeins of a pink/grey/cream yarn I could use for the yoke and then use grey for the rest. And this time I'll put in pockets. Last week I went to a work event and realized that nothing I was wearing had pockets for my business cards. Hard to network that way.

I still want to make a shawl with the yarn I mentioned here. But not portable. Plus, I really should finish something before starting another.

Angel, Woobies and Hoyay

I'm having a very fun time reading the Hoyay thread on the Angel forums at Television Without Pity. Hoyay is short for Homoeroticism Yay! The examples of gay subtext the forum posters come up with are hilarious. The Hoyay thread on the Buffy forums are just as funny.

Made me think about Connor and how he's never part of these gay couplings. I think it's because he's the Woobie. As defined by TVTropes.org: "A woobie (named for a child's security blanket) is that character you want to give a big hug, wrap in a blanket and feed soup to when he or she suffers so very beautifully."

And poor Connor has suffered so very beautifully. By the way, if you go over to TVTropes.org, be prepared to lose hours while surfing.

Cordelia and Connor

Spent the morning at home since I'm working until 10pm tonight, I'm going into the office late.


So, I watched up to the point where Cordelia's come back from being on a higher plane (what did she do there? I hope at some point we find out.) but doesn't remember who she is. Connor's the only one talking straight to her, including the part where he tried to kill her. Then she goes to live with Connor who falls in love with her. Well why wouldn't he? She's the only one who wants to spend time with him, other than his father Angel; he's alone in this world; they have to share the bed because there's only one; he's 18; she's a great person and she's gorgeous.



After much hijinks, including forgetfulness spells*, she remembers she loves Angel. They declare their love for each other, but know they can't have it (um, why not?) and she leaves to go live with Connor again.

In the most recent episode, Cordelia (while possessed) finally gets it on with Connor.

I like this couple. They're both blunt and straight to the point. The show's made it clear that he's 18, so he's legal and Cordelia's not that much older than him. And even if he is, we are now living in the age of the cougar. And poor Connor, it's about time he gets a little happiness. Plus he's so cute. Vincent Kartheiser looks totally different (and cleaner) as Pete Campbell on Mad Men, which I don't watch, even tho it's got YoSaffBridge too.


* As soon as I watched the episode Spin the Bottle where a memory spell goes wrong and the Angel Investigations team, including Wesley, forgets everything since they were teenagers. As they introduce themselves to each other, they all act as if they are teens. Cordelia's Queen C again, Fred's got a heavy accent as she says she's in school in San Antone. Gunn's all toughness and bravado. Angel calls himself Liam and makes references to being Irish. It was quite funny to see isolated, bitter, bad-ass Wesley revert to the uptight buffoon he was when he first arrived to Sunnydale fresh from the Watcher's Council.

I thought of the other times Whedon used this theme:

Band Candy from Buffy Season Three, where the adults eat the candy to fundraise for band, and revert to their teenage selves. This is where Giles as Ripper and Joyce hook up.
Tabula Rasa from Buffy Season Six where the Scooby Gang gets their memories wiped, but the emotional connections are still there.
Echoes from Dollhouse where a psychotropic drug makes all the non-Dolls act a little loopy. This is the episode where Topher wears no pants and Adelle jumps on a trampoline and says she finds lentils incomprehensible. This is where we see the emotional connection between Adelle and Topher begin. It's not a romantic relationship, but more a mother-son dynamic that really shows in Epithaph One.

Heck, you could say all of Dollhouse is a play on this theme. When memories are taken away, what do you have left? Emotions and personalities still come through.

While watching all these hours of Angel (um at least 4 episodes this morning, with much fastforwarding through the fight scenes), I sewed the back of the Sunrise Circle Jacket to the sleeves.