Herp 'n' Knit

Summer Knitty

Yay! The new Summer Knitty is out!

I just briefly perused the patterns -- they look great! I will post a more in-depth review later.

Woolly trip

We had a great time at the 2007 Massachusetts Sheep and Wool festival. Not only did we Festival, I was able to make it to Webs. I will have to post separately about my yarn and accessories haul from there. For now, some pics from the festival.

Woooof! Baaaaa.

Just thought this was funny: http://bigsister.typepad.com/bigsis/2007/04/the_dog_goes_ba.html

Some knitting podcast reviews

It has been just about forever since my last post. I am going to blame that on a horrible incident with a cat, and another yesterday with a deer, both involving my car. Luckily everyone except the cat (which was bad enough) escaped without too much harm done. Then again, let's not discount the psychological toll of having two suicidal creatures run in front of your car in a two-week time span. Although it did help commiserating with my father in law -- in the past he has been dubbed the Duck Killer by his children and still vividly remembers that family of ducks crossing the road on a trip to Europe.

I am taking a break at work and was thinking about all of the wonderful knitting podcasts that I have had the pleasure of listening to during my commute to work. I will review two of them here, and will be posting additional podcast reviews in the not-too-distant future.

The Math 4 Knitters podcast, hosted by Lara Neel, is one that I have been listening to a lot lately. It's fairly low-tech (no music or anything fancy) but the sound quality is good, and Lara is a lot of fun to listen to. She discusses the applications of math to knitting in a very approachable and easy to understand manner. Having tutored math myself, I understand the hesitation that so many people feel about math, and Lara does an excellent job breaking everything down into small steps and making it less intimidating. She also does occasional book reviews and other extras. The podcast website is http://www.math4knitters.blogspot.com/.

KnitWit: Rantings of a Rabit Knitter, hosted by Carry, is described by the host as a "storytelling podcast with occasional knit bits". Although I started listening to this one for its knitting content, I have stayed for Carry's stories. She is a wonderful storyteller, and her tales often leave me laughing out loud. She seems to alternate between knitting and non-knitting episodes, and I have to say I like both equally. An older episode that I didn't get the chance to listen to until recently dealt with Carry's experience getting a mammogram, and then finding out that she had several masses that had to be checked out (everything seems to have turned out OK). Carry managed to tell the story with a dose of her signature humor, and she provided great info for other women dreading going through the same. Definitely check this one out. The website is http://autumnbreezedesigns.com/blog/.

First secret pal package!

Secret pal, your package made my week! It was so green, and cute, and smelled wonderful! :) The picture below doesn't do it justice.

Contents:

• Two skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca sport weight alpaca, in a gorgeous avocado color,
• Extremely adorable froggy magnets
• A cheeky notepad,
• Chocolate,
• MORE chocolate :),
• A wonderful olive oil soap, which made the package smell SO GOOD!

Thank you once again, my excellent secret pal!

Progress on Trellis

Minimal, but it's there. A big step for me since I'd gotten into a rut thinking I could no longer knit. The pattern I'm knitting is Trellis from Knitty, and I've wanted to knit this ever since it came out (in Spring 2005). I bought the yarn for it quite a while ago (Debbie Blish Cashmerino Aran in a gorgeous wine color -- pictures don't do it justice), and of course no longer have enough of it to make a sweater for little E. However, Miss C. is only 4 months old, so it'll be for her instead.

I decided today to take a look at my Amazon.com wish list and update it. I hadn't looked at it in probably about two years, and I added some more knitting books as well as novels that I'd like to read someday. I was surprised at how many knitting books I could find to add, considering that I had a hard time coming up with books that I still needed. I guess that's the difference between "need" and "want", right? Looks like there's some great books coming out soon though, including a Nicky Epstein felting book and Lace Style, the third book in the series following Scarf Style and Wrap Style.

Winter is here, frustration, and a wimple.

Finally some more knitting content! I feel like I'm all over the place with my knitting lately -- trying different projects and then getting frustrated because I keep making errors. It is making me question my abilities, but I probably should chalk it up to the fact that I have a job, two kids, and associated hassles as well as joys. After seeing the forecast for the next few days (winter is finally here in New York) I decided to sit down and knit something relatively straightforward and practical, a simple wimple! The pattern is based on this one.

The yarn: I bought a skein of Morehouse Merino wool when I was at the store after the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival 2006, and found this one in the bargain bin. I believe it is an underdyed version of their "Autumn Colors" colorway. I actually looooove these colors -- they are so muted but pretty. At least I have a finished object to put on my blog, and I have gathered up enough confidence to feel ready to tackle one of my many, more challenging, unfinished projects.

Why I have not had time to knit.

Besides the horrendous cold which has now migrated to my head, I have been busy with this:

Yes, my little tadpole is starting his potty training. All he does so far is just sit. He finds it all incredibly amusing.

The other activity he seems to enjoy when he is tired is trying to kick his sister out of the bumbo chair:

Although all was once again quiet last night after the kids fell asleep, I was too exhausted to do anything that required mental effort, so ended up watching TV. 

On positive knitting news, I just found out today that my local knitting store has a free knit night on every last Thursday of the month, so that's where I'm headed tonight!

Bio warfare

I don't understand why governments spend billions of dollars developing biological weapons, when all they would have to do is put a bunch of toddlers in day care in the desired area. A nice friendly way of attacking your enemies -- have some cute toddlers running around hugging people, spreading their antibiotic-resistant germs.

Little E. has had a pretty much continuous cold/ear infection since July, when he started day care. Miss C. has only been in day care for 3 days, and she has already brought home a nasty virus which knocked me out all weekend. So, I apologize for getting lazy with blogging, but between making it through my first week back at work, and dealing with two sick kids, I am happy I still have some semblance of sanity left.

On more happy news, I am now part of SP8 (for the non-knitting folks, this is a Secret Pal exchange where you send yarn and other goodies to your pal and try to figure out who is spoiling you :) ) and am very excited! I am enjoying stalking my SP -- hee hee, this is the only time you can stalk someone without feeling creepy about it. I cannot wait to put together her first package.

Does something smell fishy around here?

Today's visit to our local aquarium was punctuated with my son's yells of "fishy, fishy" and squeals of excitement brought on by the stingray feeding (they let you feed them yourself). I especially like the piranhas in the second picture -- they are cute in a grumpy-I'm-going-to-bite-your-finger-off sort of way.

In knitting news, I completed hat #1 for the Children's Hospital Boston last night. I'm not sure if hats #2+ are going to come to fruition, simply because I do not really enjoy knitting with Bernat Boa (Lovebird is the colorway I used). However, it was a quick knit and it's certainly going to a good cause. It looks sort of square in the picture but actually looks pretty cute on.

Other than that, I spent some time reorganizing little E.'s closet -- he seems to be growing out of everything and I just bought him a batch of new shirts. I am posting a picture so I can remember that yes, indeed, while all tends towards greater entropy, this trend may, if only for a short time, be reversed.