Thursday bullets

• I went to Rhinebeck and I had a really good time and I need to blog about it and download photos from my camera. I also need to take photos of some yarn that I bought there and track some other acquisitions I've made since I moved here.
• There are 2 completed knitting projects I still haven't blogged. Not only that, I've worn both of them. Not only that, but I still haven't woven in the ends on one of them, and they're really obvious. Also, they aren't socks.
  
• I have a new bedroom window so every post from now on out shouldn't be about how cold I am. (To be fair, it was very chilly with the breeze and not turning the heat on.)
• This weekend I'm hoping to do some food shopping and knitting in addition to going in to work. I'm planning on cooking soup and starting up breadmaking again next week. If I'm really motivated, I might watch a movie or read a book.
  
• I'm very tired this week. After coming home from Rhinebeck on Saturday night, I went to bed. Sunday I went grocery shopping, went out to lunch with a friend, went to work, and then cooked soup. Work is very busy right now. (This is good. Really.) On top of that, I'm fighting a cold, and if you know where I live (and that my apartment is located above a bar), you will also understand my stating that it's been a bit loud in the evenings. Particularly so last night.
• I want to knit some mitts and some gloves and some mittens and a sweater and some socks and I don't want to start anything new until I have finished some of the old things that are taking up space in my living room. I'm not very excited about working on most of them. The item I most want to knit is stalled due to a backorder of additional yarn. Hopefully it will arrive soon.
  
• I'm going to try to knit now, maybe with some tea and honey for my sore throat, and possibly with some crappy tv streamed over my computer. So much for my attempts at daily blogging.
  

I need pictures.

Yes, I know. Yet another photo-less post. In my defense, when I got up at 7 this morning, it was grey and rainy. When I walked home from work, via the grocery store, it was cold and grey and rainy. Photos? Hah. I'm concentrating on staying warm.

There's a significant draft in my living room. Specifically, one of the new windows put in the apartment before I moved in is not sealed well, and it leaks when it rains. In the bedroom, there's still a missing window pane. In a word, I'm cold. I'm thinking about buying some caulk to fix the living-room window. As I said, I'm cold, and I'm responsible for the heating bill come winter. It's only fall now. At the same time, 42 and rainy with no heat doesn't feel very warm.

I have a need to knit something, immediately, but I have no idea what. I am in desperate need of mittens. I also could use a warm sweater or three. Instead, I have a shawl, socks, and a scarf on the needles. I'm feeling a need to finish things up, too. I am also afraid that I have lost my sock mojo. I have some great yarn, but I'm just not getting into it. (I just looked down at myself and realized I am a handknit nightmare - over a Land's End sweater and yoga pants, I am wearing my purplish chevron scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, my red and orange Clapotis wrapped around my waist, and blue striped socks. Perhaps there is a reason I am avoiding cameras?)

This weekend I am going up to Rhinebeck. I'm excited, partly because I am meeting 2 blogging friends who I feel like I almost "know" from years of chatting back and forth, and also because it sounds like this festival is a sight to behold. I'm not planning on buying much - but tomorrow may be a time to revisit the Ravelry queue and think about what I might want or need.

Other than a heated mattress pad, that is. I'm thinking of getting one of those on Sunday. Plus a second pad to put over the memory foam cushion that makes up a significant portion of my mattress, as I'm sleeping on a futon.

Brrr...

I'm back north, after a weekend away. It's cold up here! Tonight it's in the low 50's, which would probably feel less cold if it hadn't been in the 80's and 90's for me this weekend. This upcoming weekend? I may be even colder, but let's see how that develops... I may have some exciting (at least for me) news later this week.

Tonight was knitting, and it was good. I've decided that my mystery project (which isn't done yet) needs a second skein of yarn. The big reveal? It's a Shetland Triangle out of Malabrigo Sock. I'm going to buy the second skein and keep going. It's a great pattern, and I love knitting it. But I am also sick of all the dinky little shawls I have been knitting lately, so this one will be bigger, and deserves to be so.

Photos soon - I promise. I need light, and right now I need to find someplace warm to go hide. There's a wicked draft that I'm sitting in, and the window to my apartment isn't fixed yet. I'm cold! I'm even contemplating fingerless gloves to make my joints stop aching, which is just sad commentary.

Late, and I need sleep.

I missed a day, but not for lack of trying.

Yesterday was just kind of busy, what with the dissertation defense, experiment, meeting, and flying out of town. Got back to the southern state around 10 something at night, took a taxi home and tried to hold up my end of a conversation about football, which is sort of the equivalent of asking me to speak fluent Chinese.

Have spent most of today attached to my son, or rather with him sitting on me or otherwise touching me. It's nice to be missed, and it's wonderful to see him, but IT'S HOT HERE, and disgustingly humid. Plus, there are mosquitos. And I'm really not used to it anymore, especially since I have been experiencing pleasant fall-like weather up north. It's good to be back, however, as I missed my family, and my washing machine. I find myself oddly overwhelmed by the size of my house, and it's not big. I guess I've adapted to the city more than I thought, as it was also odd to be driving and to not hear sirens last night when I went to bed. It's strange being here, because I don't live here anymore, and it's decidedly not home. Of course, it's also clear that we're in transition, because my husband isn't really living here either, and my apartment is for the most part, undecorated.

I am not sure what our plans are for the rest of the weekend. Right now, husband is out picking up burgers and fries for dinner. I am still protein-starved, and I'm fitting into my "skinny" jeans again, despite my scale saying that I have not lost an ounce since I moved, so I feel no guilt. Even after the Krispy Kreme donuts and the cookie earlier today. Hah. We're possibly going to go play mini-golf on Saturday, if the weather holds, and I think there's potentially interest in seeing Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. I don't really care what we do, as I'm happy to be with them. Tonight is likely to be movies/TiVO and hanging out with some knitting.

On the way out of my apartment, I realized that I left my camera, so photos will not be happening this weekend. There's also been no knitting yet today, and I suspect that time will be somewhat limited. I did finish another mystery, however. One thing I love about travel is that I essentially have a lot of uninterrupted time to read. I just finished reading Shot Girl, which was a light, but fun read. If you enjoy mass-market mysteries, this one is better than many I've read lately. Food's here, so I'm off.

Packing, with knitting.

I just unraveled a sock. I liked the yarn. I liked the pattern. They just weren't quite right together. Bad proportions, or just an ill-fitting sock for my foot.

I'm not sure what to bring with me. I'm going to be away for a few days, and I am close to the end on the mystery project, I have a mindless sock that is about a day from completion, and a mindless scarf I can take with me. I don't know how much time I'm going to have to knit, and I hate the idea of running out of knitting. But I'm also liking finishing things a lot.

Too late now to write, and I'm too tired to think. Leaving tomorrow afternoon, and I'm delighted.

What I do, and a turtle.

As I kind of expected, things went from a relaxed and easy pace to all kinds of insanity at work today. It's a short week for me, as I'm taking off to see the hub and kid this weekend, and I'm vacating work a day early. Of course, now that I have plans for that, all the supplies I had ordered are now trickling in, and there's work (a lot of it) to be done on the 3 experiments I'm working on.

I was going to head over to knitting tonight, but I was starving (forgot to eat) and I'm tired. So I picked up a sandwich on the way home and watched Heroes and House instead.

The front half of the week is typically brutal. I have a regularly scheduled experiment on Monday, and I'm usually busy with that all day and through most of Tuesday. It's not difficult work, but it requires fairly intense attention during the active times, and for a good chunk of time, it's a matter of constant, careful motion. All the steps are time-sensitive, and there's a lot of moving from one place to another. This week I got a reprieve (sort of). I was able to pause my experiment at a point where I don't usually stop, and I'll take it up again next week. Of course, now I have to look forward to working with some seriously scary reagents, and I'm more than a little nervous about it. (Next week, I get to work with trifluoroacetic acid, and yes, I will be working in the fume hood for a change. Acetic acid is no big deal, neither is hydrochloric, but this stuff intimidates me a bit. Okay, a lot.) Plus, I really want everything to work, so I have to be very very careful how I do things next week. Should be interesting - I need clean, non-contaminated samples, but maybe, just maybe, I'll have some good results by the end of the month.

Anyhow, I got to do something very cool today, and I played with lasers. No kidding. I'm learning how to use a million dollar piece of equipment, which oddly seems less intimidating than it used to. (We really have excellent toys here.) There's more training tomorrow, plus a session on how to use a much less interesting piece of equipment in the lab (it doesn't have a laser.) I spent the afternoon staring in frustration at my computer, finally figuring out that the answer to a problem I was having was much simpler than I thought, but does mean that I lost some time and have to repeat something I did last week. Then I did a little bit of prep work for the third project that I'm doing preliminary work on, which I'm super excited about. I have a laundry list of small things to do waiting for me in the morning, and with any luck, I should have another shipment of supplies arriving, because I'm waiting for a custom order to come in.

Sometimes I gripe about my job - it's busy, it's hard, and the personalities around me can, at times, be a little different. At the same time, I love the variety of things I get to do. Most of the time, I'm not sitting at a desk; instead, I'm doing and making things. I am however, tired. Tomorrow will come soon, and it will be busy. Time to knit another row or two, and then to collapse and hopefully sleep. I'm hoping for a quiet night. I'm also grateful for an iPod app that generates white noise. There's little else that knocks me out so quickly.

Day 5, i guess - Interweave Knits Weekend

I'm a sucker for a knitting magazine. I like to look at them, and I frequently find "Special Issues" to be more exciting than the actual magazine. (Actually, Interweave, I'm looking directly at you on that one. Lately I like Knitscene better than IK, for whatever reason.) Anyhow, here's my take.

The bottom line: Do you need this? No, it's not essential, but there are some interesting things in it.

There are a few attractive patterns, but there's nothing that really jumps out at me as an amazing fantastic "wow, I really need to knit that 5 minutes ago," but there are things I would make out of the magazine.

First, an article on novels about knitting.
Next, "Friday." Starts strong, with a pretty Kathy Zimmerman guy sweater, and a cute kid's sweater by Wendy Bernard. Two of my favorites in this issue. Kid pants, and a capelet are next. Then a sweater that is meant to be reversible. My feeling about this is that anyone who has seen me in person will realize that the shape of my chest and my back are rather dissimilar, and this sweater is designed for a much different body type than my own. A blurb about sizing things for kids, and some simple socks. The patterns follow, with commentary. Much more mixed than the current layout of IK.

Next, an article on teaching kids to knit. I admit to have not read this yet. "Saturday Morning." A really basic, very wearable women's cardigan. (I would knit this, and actually might.) A cute baby jacket, and a kitchen towel. A very interesting basket out of some ridiculously huge yarn. Probably costs a fortune, but at least it was done to make a sculptural piece instead of clothing. A pillow, with a super simple and elegant design. I really dig it, actually, and am intrigued by the color. Probably a deceptively expensive project. Awesome button. Next an apron and a hat. More pattern information and words.

An article on fiber festivals. More patterns - a guy sweater and a scarf by Ann Budd, and a cardigan by Annie Modesitt. The cardigan is not me, but it's interesting. Next, "Sunday," and a cardigan that is cut in a current style that I personally don't find flattering, and can't pull off, but I like the color a lot and the stitch pattern. Another guy sweater - I get the concept, but I'm not sure I like the placement of the design element. A cute cloche hat, which would either look adorable or horrible on me. A cowl neck sweater. Can't personally wear them, and this particular one would add a good 30 pounds on me. Kid shrug. A lace cardigan in bulky wool - again, not my style or cut. Very current lines, but I'm not shaped right for it.

Simple colorwork hat and mittens. Some designer interviews (They're all very cute, and look happy. I like the photos.) Staff projects - a vest, a scarf, a bag, and a vest. Next page is a dog vest (? Really not for me.) Two plain simple cardigans I like a lot, and would personally wear. The down side to both of them is bunching of fabric around the armhole - oh, and the patterns are online, not in the magazine. An absolutely ridiculous hat - I'm sorry - I get what you're doing, but I'm not that much of an exhibitionist.

Overall, the layout reminds me a lot of the first IK that came out when Eunny Jang first took over. I don't have really strong feelings in favor of or against this issue - and I think it does serve it's purpose of patterns for relaxed, low stress weekend knitting of casual clothing.

Peek for yourself here. Thoughts?