My Life as Catastrophe

Life at casa Habsgirl is best described as "in total disarray." Why, you may ask. Let me explain.

Last Wednesday, deconstruction began in our kitchen/downstairs bathroom renovation. Mom and I emptied the two rooms of everything, meaning it moved into the dining room/living room/computer room/my bedroom, making the house cramped and difficult to move about in. The kitchen is sealed off but it is accessible through a zippered plastic panel. This becomes important.

Last Thursday, I let my parents' cat out - he's allowed to go out, but he's very set in his ways, and going out the front door is NOT part of his routine. Less so? Coming in the front door. This leads to me making numerous trips outside to see if he is on the back porch or otherwise accessible. A little before 11 pm, I head down for yet another cat search. My mother is not on the couch. She is staggering through the pitch-black kitchen saying "I fell." Oooh, baby, did she ever. She decided to go out and get the cat. He was on the back porch, and she grabbed him. He panicked and took off, dragging her behind, off the porch and onto the concrete patio. Her glasses are toast, she's bleeding on the side of her head, her wrists hurt, her knees hurt. I get her onto the couch, call 911, get the ambulance on its way, go up and wake Dad, let the paramedics in, move furniture out of the way and wait. She gets to the hospital, Dad and I sit in the waiting room (I grabbed knitting on the way out the door, so progress on the Chinese Leftover socks was made) and wait. She broke both wrists, badly enough that she needs an orthopedic surgeon to set them, and they can't get a consult in the middle of the night. They dope her up on Demerol and we go home and attempt to sleep. (The cat eventually came in and has been living under my bed.)

Next day, Dad goes to the hospital, and I stay home to deal with construction/ordering new glasses/figuring out who we need to call (little brother is on vacation, complicating this). In a stroke of luck, the orthopedic surgeon is at our little hospital to do a bunch of knee 'scopes. He determines that she doesn't need pins or stuff, and the setting can be done here. Fine, dandy, she's now got a lovely set of plaster casts. Once the wrists are done, they start looking at the rest of her. They want a facial x-ray because she's got one hell of a shiner on the left eye. But they can't x-ray her here because of the casts - they can't position her so that she's comfortable and they can see what they need to see. So, they load her up into the ambulance and take her into the city for a CT scan, and Dad and I follow in the car (9 pm). We spend two hours in the waiting room waiting to be called to do paperwork. I finish the second Baudelaire and switch back to the Chinese Takeout sock, and nearly finish it - I was just about to start a sewn bindoff when they call us back into the observation area. (Her records were all complete - which makes sense since this is the same hospital where she gets mammograms - so our waiting to be called to do paperwork was for naught.) She's broken her orbital bone, and needs to see an ophthalmologist at 10 am Saturday at another hospital. She will stay in the ER overnight, rather than shipping her back out to our town and then taking her back in for the ophthalmologist appointment. We're told that we will be the ones driving her to her appointment. Which surprises me, because she doesn't look like moving is a great idea. But fine - if she can't travel by car in the morning, something will get figured out.

Bright and early Saturday morning, we reappear at the ER, bearing clothes. She's sitting up and looking more with it than she has been. So I get to dress her (a taste of days to come), we load her into the car and drive to the other hospital. Which has a lot of bumpy spots that don't seem well-designed for a hospital, but there you go. We go up to the eye clinic, get sent back downstairs to the registration area, back up to the eye clinic, she gets checked out and her eye appears to be fine. The only problem may be one that pre-dates the injury. The ophthmologist says she should see an opto-plastic surgeon (do not quote me on that spelling) for the broken orbital bone, and he'll make those arrangements. As Dad says, this is probably a good area to get such an injury, since they probably see a lot of these resulting from pucks to the face.

Then we head back to town and she checks into the hospital proper. I feed her lunch, and we leave her for a nap. Now, the routine consists of heading back to the hospital for meal times, so we can feed her and visit. She'll be fine - they're keeping her in the hospital so that the plastic surgeon consult can be scheduled and home care can be arranged. For the next 6-8 weeks, she won't be able to do anything for herself (and probably some time after that). I told her that there were less dramatic ways of making me get a driver's license, and she pointed out that I hadn't done it yet. So my knitting and blogging time is most likely going to be severely curtailed for a while, since I am no longer a lady of leisure. I've got to run the house, make sure Dad eats, and a whole bunch of stuff I kinda suck at. Fun, fun, fun.

The moral of the story - if the cat isn't ready to come in, don't make him! He'll become infamous in hospitals throughout the area. (And socialized medicine has its perks.)

And a meme, because I thought it was hilariously wrong based on my experiences:

habsgirl -- [adjective]: Sexually stunning 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Randomness again.

I held off on posting the finished Mad Batik socks (from the Sock Madness tournament), so my Bloomin' Feet socks would get the viewing they so richly deserved!

I'm not terribly thrilled with these, because the fit is ... off. You'll note that the toe on the pink sock is much wider across than the black/gray one. The gauge on the foot portion is different on each, due to differing techniques - a learn-as-you-go kind of thing. I knit the black/grey sock first toe up. I knit the foot portion "normally" which led to overly-tight stranding. The pink sock was knit cuff down and the fair isle portions were knit inside out. Tricky to maneuver, but much looser stranding for me. I should have knit the heels/toes/ribbed cuffs on smaller needles, because they're loose and floppy. They will make nice house socks come winter, though.

And, just because, a meme from sprite's blog:

Just start your iPod, iTunes, or whatever music player you use, and write down the first ten tracks that come up. No cheating and skipping around until you get the cool songs.

1. Scattered, Green Day (from Nimrod)

2. L'hiver Approche, Les Cowboys Fringants (from Break syndical)

3. Employee of the Month, John Doe (from Dim Stars, Bright Sky)

4. Can't Decide, Orange 9mm (from Driver Not Included)

5. Sacrifice, Orange 9mm (from Driver Not Included)

6. Nature Springs, The Good, The Bad and The Queen (from The Good, The Bad and The Queen)

7. Eat, Eat, Eat, Bowser & Blue (from Humor for Boomers)

8. When I Fall, Barenaked Ladies (from Born on a Pirate Ship)

9. When We Two Parted, Afghan Whigs (from Gentlemen)

10. The Stars Above, Sianspheric (from Somnium)

Nearly 2500 songs on my iPod and it manages to pull two songs from the same album. (And not even my favorite Orange 9mm album - I prefer Tragic.) Go figure. A fairly representative range of music, although no classical (not that there's much there) and no big band/Gershwin. It did skip the embarrassing stuff, though. (I own all of Jacques Villeneuve's oeuvre, but that's because I'm a racing geek, not because it's good. Hilarious? Yes.)

Hark! I see a blossom!

Tim Tams have arrived! Socks, however, not so much. (I blame Canada Post. They're...erratic.) The Tim Tams were mailed separately, because of something in the other package that might have damaged them. Thanks, OzKnitter!

Knitting progress? I have a couple of finished objects to be shown at a later date (gifts) and Dauphin is currently blocking in the dining room:

The Chinese Leftover socks are awaiting a heel turn, the Sarcelle has been lying fallow (skipped knitting group last week because Mom had an eye appointment) and I've started the Mad For Fair Isle Batik Style socks from Sock Madness, but they're currently inside out to try and ease my stranding issues, so they look like a black/grey and pink blob. Pictures eventually.

Current and Future Projects

I meant to post earlier, but I forgot to take pictures of my current projects when I took my recent acquisition pictures, and the weather didn't cooperate until today. (The window in the computer room is blocked with stuff since we moved the treadmill in, so my photos will be done outside. If the neighbors didn't already think I was strange, this would do it.)

In the sidebar order, first up is Sarcelle.

This is the Seasilk I bought in October (my guess is that the color is Nova Scotia, but since they don't label stuff, I could be wrong). I tried to create my own design, but it just wasn't working. Blogsurfing one night turned up this pattern (again - I'd seen it before and thought "Pretty"), and it tempted me. It's working well - complex enough to keep me interested, simple enough to do at sit and knit (it's my yarn store knitting, since I try to use yarn I've bought there) and I think it will end up being gorgeous. I'm doing fewer repeats, since the Seasilk is heavier than the yarn used in the pattern, and am assiduously weighing after each stage, so I can try to calculate where I'll need to stop the straight section. Progress is going to slow down a bit, since it will be solely yarn store knitting at this point (I had been finishing sections at home so I could weigh the yarn.)

Next, Dauphin:

This is from Phildar Ete 2004, a simple short-sleeved summer sweater (why she calls the color Smurf blue is beyond me, unless North America got darker Smurfs). This should be a quick knit, since I started last Saturday and have finished the back in a week and started the front. I thought about knitting the body in the round, but the stitch pattern might have been distorted with the spiral effect. I don't love seaming (witness the poor abandoned Bias Fair Isle!), but I'll deal.

Last, and sort of least, the Chinese Leftover Socks:

This is the two sides of a plain-vanilla toe-up knit from Tofutsies in "One Foot in Front of the Other. I'm not terribly fond of knitting with this yarn - it's loosely plied, and my technique tends to lead to ply blob creation. Couple that with the pooling, and it's not something I would buy again. I do like the fabric it makes (although I wouldn't mind knitting it tighter if bamboo needles came below 2mm.)

As for recent acquisitions, let's start with books:

The Vogue Knitting was bought so I could make fun of examine the onesie pattern by Annie Modesitt, since there weren't any pictures on the web that I could find. Now I know why. That said, the other baby patterns are very cute, and it was worth buying for those. "Knitting Without Tears" and "Knitted Toys" were bought at a book sale for a pittance - I don't think I would have paid retail for "KWT" because I don't find it as mindblowing as others, but that's me. "More Sensational Knitted Socks" and "Lace Style" are from my LYS, and "No Sheep For You" is from the local big-box book store. That I needed to buy because I bought this on eBay:

Fourteen balls of Rowan Calmer in Chiffon. If you (a) "know" me, either IRL or virtually and (b) have seen Morrigan, you'd know that that sweater was SCREAMING my name. The Chiffon color (lavender) was chosen mostly because that and Laurel were available at a steep discount from Janette's Rare Yarns, and I liked the Chiffon better than the slightly odd green that is Laurel (at least in most of the pictures I found on the web.) So, after I finish Dauphin, I will copy out the relevant charts and get cracking on Morrigan.
I've already done a little practice:
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That's Shedir in Tinkerbell. I started it in a fit of reading non-comprehension. Teri at Stitch-n-Snitch was my Bloomin' Feet recipient, and her father was diagnosed with cancer. Moron that I can be, I read it as her mother, and started the Shedir pretty much immediately. Tinkerbell is not a terribly manly color. So, I finished Shedir, and made an attempt at a different hat in a more masculine/less feminine color:

(The grey on the left - the orange is just because I have a strange fondness for neon orange, and it was on sale.) It didn't work, so I tossed the idea, since Teri made several lovely hats for her dad. I couldn't post pictures of Shedir until now, since it would have been a total giveaway as to the identity of who I was knitting for.

That's enough rambling, don't you think?

Surfacing again

This has not been a stellar year so far for blogging. I blame it on Saturn's retrograde period. (As good as an excuse as any.)

This post will be finished objects. I promise to follow with current knitting and recent acquisitions in the very near future. (Oy, the acquisitions. Must. Stop. Shopping.)

First up, Day Two of Round Three of Sock Madness:

I was definitely out by 1 pm Thursday, and I was probably out earlier than that, but I wasn't sure who my opponent was on Flickr. I was OK with it, because I really didn't like those socks. The pattern was too wide for my feet, and the gauge given was far too loose for the Socks that Rock. I'm not a fan of cuffed socks - I find them too bulky. I might have been happier had I used the STR and the specified needles rather than the specified gauge (which goes against everything I've been taught about gauge), but I don't think I would have been happy. The yarn will wait for another pattern. Other lessons I've learned from Sock Madness is that (a) I'm a control freak (I kept thinking, "But why? I would do it [this way]." and (b) I like a VERY tightly knit sock. That said, I loved the fourth round pattern, and will be knitting it at some point in the future.

Now, some pretty pictures of the Bloomin' Feet socks:



Look - spring blossoms! (Especially incredible considering we had snow two days before that picture was taken.) My package was mailed off today, and should get there next week. I hope the recipient likes it!

Random family knitting. The now seasonally-inappropriate (knock on wood) Esther Williams Hat:

The pattern called for crochet trim, but I seem to have a very short head, and the trim would impede my vision. I have two fresh balls of Mission Falls in Raspberry to knit another one for my mother, who has a hard time finding hats that cover her forehead as she likes.

I'm back to knitting socks for Mom, since she's been neglected this year. At the end of March, my LYS finally received the long-anticipated shipment of Koigu (it was due in originally "end of October, early November). Two skeins had to come home with me:

Since I pilfered the STR that I had intended to use for Pomatomus socks for Mom, and in hopes that the Koigu would not stripe like the Lorna's Laces I used for mine, I wound up the Koigu and knit away:

Oh well. They not only striped, the stripe reversed direction on the foot. They're still cute, though.

Sorry for the absence

I was knocked out by a particularly virulent something-or-other. I spent the better part of a week in bed, half-watching wedding shows while attempting to hack up a lung. I didn't even leave the house for a week and a half. I am back to relatively human form.

No knitting occurred while I was ill. (I also didn't sleep much or eat much.) However, I have started my Bloomin' Feet Socks:

This is the third attempt at these socks. The first time, I just grabbed 2.5mm dpns and cast on 64 stitches and started a pretty leaf pattern out of BWII. The socks were a good quarter inch too big on my feet, and my feet are wider than the recipient. Rip. I knit a tiny swatch on 2mms, letting me know I get 10 spi on those needles. Hmm. I pull out Sensational Knitted Socks, but nothing sends me. I pull out my binder o'patterns, volume 2 and poke through. I pull out my Badcaul pattern and start in, back on the 2.5mms - it's fewer stitches! It will be fine! The cables ended up totally lost. Rip again. Pull out Nautilus and cast on on 2 mm needles, rejiggering for the tighter gauge. Finally! Success.

I've also got some more sock patterns coming. A friend went to Stitches West and picked up a couple for me: Thelonious and Twisted Flower socks by the amazing Cookie A. Add to that the upcoming Sock Madness, and it's just all socks all the time around here. I foresee a summer of hats.

Yet another post about socks.

Another pair of socks completed:

Simply Lovely Lace Socks from last spring's IK. (I bought this spring's IK, but that' a topic for a different time.) I like these socks, although I will wait until it's a little warmer to wear them. They're an easy knit, not entirely mindless but not really complex. I did lengthen the leg by about 1.5 inches, and switched to an eye of partridge heel, which I find much denser than straight slip-stitch heels. Here's a closeup of the pattern stitch:


And I signed up for Sock Madness, so there will be even more sock posts in my future. I don't expect to win - I'm really just in it for the patterns. I will do my best in the competition, but I really see myself as a mid-major - depending on matchup and game day performance, I may surprise myself and go far, or just make it through a round or two. Plus, I hope to bust some of my stash - which isn't huge in comparison to many, but could still use a little editing.

Yay! Yarn!

My Lisa Souza yarn arrived today! (OK, yesterday if you're being picky, but I don't count the day change until I go to sleep.) Marky Mark finally came through. (The postman's name is Mark, and I've corrupted it to Marky Mark. He bears no resemblance to the original Marky Mark.

That's Sock!Merino in Mars Quake (for Mom), Violet's Pink Ribbon (for me) and Shade Garden (for my Bloomin' Feet pal.) The Mars Quake is more red than I had expected, but Mom likes it, so that's OK. I think the Shade Garden is perfect for my pal, so now I just need to find a pattern.

In other news, I made cookies - Gingerbread Palmiers from the December Martha Stewart Living. Properly made, they look like this:

Mine? Not so much:

Not a recipe I will do again.

Random sock-related news

1 - I have purchased yarn for Bloomin' Feet. It is winging its way to me - Lisa Souza Sock!Merino. There's a skein of Shade Garden for my pal, a skein of Violet's Pink Ribbon for me and a skein of Mars Quake for Mom. Looking locally turned up nothing I thought my pal would like.

2 - That's not to say my local shopping was unsuccessful. I did pick up a skein of Tofutsies in "One Foot In Front of the Other" for Mom:

I'd be happier if they'd make some in solid colors, which I prefer to self-striping. (Yet hand-painted makes me happy - something about the randomness.)

3 - I finally finished the Broadripples for me:

The second picture is more accurate colorwise. I say finally because I kept breaking the casein needles I was using, and broke the second needle (which left me with too few to work with) on a Friday, and I waited until knitting group on Thursday to replace them with nice sturdy Aeros. (Don't mention Magic Loop or 2 circulars. I've done both and they drive me nuts. They work for some, but I'm a DPN girl.)

4- I started another pair of socks, of course. Simply Lovely Lace socks by Karen Baumer, from last spring's Interweave Knits:

These are made out of the same Koigu as the Spring Leaves socks I knit last year. I'm currently decreasing out the gusset stitches.

I need to start working on some non-sock projects. I'm thinking that the Phildar sweater I bought yarn for off eBay would be a good choice. I am using my Sea Silk for a stole, but that will not be seen as I'm considering submitting it for publication. (That and I cast on way too many stitches, and need to restart it.) It does make a good knitting group project, leaving the Phildar sweater for alternate home knitting.

Edited to answer Helen's question: Bias is still lying around my house in pieces. My middle name would be Procrastination if I ever got around to changing it!

More Finished Stuff

I've been spending my time knitting, not writing, clearly. Still no pictures of the Slayer socks (but they did accompany Mom to the sleep clinic.) So, here are the Sleepy Toasty Toes socks:

Just a cute little pair of anklets, whisper light and toasty warm. And currently covered in flannel-sheet pills. I was really concerned about how much yarn I had, since my little digital scale told me I had 50 grams or so. The remaining ball weighs about 27 grams, so I could knit another pair in the future. Thank you very much for the yarn, Rachel!

Then, I knit up the Whiskers and Paw Prints socks by Theresa Walunas. When you have kitty-cat colored yarn (Koigu KPPPM P313), knit kitty-cat socks! (Clicking on the photo will take you to a larger version, which better shows the detail.)

These were an easy knit for me, and would be an excellent introduction to lace. These are currently my mother's socks (with a possibility of defaulting to me if there's any laundry shrinkage.) When I managed to find more kitty-cat colored yarn, I will knit another pair for whoever doesn't have ownership of these. (I also bought the Here There be Dragons sock pattern.)

I also finished up the knitting tote and knit a little bag to hold wallet/cell phone/lip gloss/assorted other things that were always getting lost in my knitting bag (note use of baseboard for approximate scale):

The tote was based on the Southwestern Style Bag in Paton's "Fabulous Felting" booklet - I just ignored all the beads/bobbles/color changes and knit 10 round stripes (the total number of rounds for the sides was 110, which worked out perfectly.) The base and I-cords for the straps were done in the Chestnut Brown. The little bag was knit from the Sophie pattern from Magknits, but modified to be a buttonhole bag. I cast of 21 stitches on the long sides on row 46, and cast them back on on row 47, and then bound off all stitches when the pattern directed me to bind off most of them. The Classic Wool felted easily, although I think there is probably room for it to shrink some more.

As for new projects, I've wound my Seasilk, but am missing the pattern that came with it (which I wanted for a rough starting stitch count). I'm knitting a pair of Broadripples with the Fourth of July Esprit Print I bought from Elann eons ago (I'm slightly disappointed, because the red on the ball mysteriously becomes hot pink as soon as it leaves the ball - so much for my Canadiens-colored socks!) and the Desperation socks progress slowly, because I want to leave them for knitting group knitting.

In addition, I'm looking for the right yarn for my Bloomin' Feet socks. I've spotted several online options, but am sort of hoping to find something locally. Mostly because ordering will end up being "One for pal, two for me, one for mom - good grief, look at that total!" Couple that with my recent perfume find/addiction, and it does add up. Especially when you order sweater kits in blue just because. (I ordered it from my LYS, but this was the first link I found that gave the alternate colors.)

Insert your own creative title here

First off, I finally decided on a dress, and ordered it a week ago Friday, so it should be here (knock on wood) early this week - maybe even today. I ended up choosing the wine Obi dress. One, it's really going to be too cold for the 50s dress (it's pretty much socks and sweaters weather now, and it's not going to warm up in the next three weeks); two, I already own dresses very similar to the 50s dress, and I decided to buy something different. Plus, the wedding colors are burgundy, brown and hunter green (I think), so I should coordinate. My favorite cousin is coming up for the wedding (it's been odd - first she was coming with her sister and her mother, then it was just my aunt and uncle, then nobody was coming, and now we're back to the original three), which is really good. Especially since I was at the shower today, and it wasn't particularly fun sitting around listening to all the bride's friends discuss children. I felt much better when I started cleaning up in the games portion - 2nd place (or 3rd if you count the tie for first as covering first and second) in the word scramble, 1st in who knows the groom best (the bride did beat me, but they ruled she couldn't have the prizes since there was a table full of gifts) and the prize for identifying when the groom became a Christian. (Considering only my mother and I knew him back then, and her memory's worse than mine, it was easy - I only remember because it was my freshman year of college!) The questions for who knows the groom best were kind of hard - there was one question (favorite race car driver and series) where the answer contained the proviso that the bride should get credit if she named anybody other than Danica Patrick. She didn't. (I guessed either Raikonnen or Villeneuve, and it turned out to be Allmendinger.)

Enough rambling - on to knitting. I finished up what are now called the Pinkcaul socks:

(Yes, I know the toe is cut off - you try taking a photo sitting like that! It's a rapid-increase variation on the figure eight cast on - increase every row instead of every other row.) Very warm and cozy socks. And very very pink!

Now, for what's on the needles. This is a somewhat early photo of the Phildar cardi, along with the original:

I'm now about 25 centimeters into it, but it just has more blue, with decreases on the side "seams" - I converted into one big piece instead of knitting a back and two fronts. The white markers denote the side. The ribbing worked out nicely - there's a k on either side of the marker, and I decreased into that column. I've got another 15 centimeters or so to go before I split for the armscyes. I thought about picking up the sleeves and avoiding all seaming, but I really like the look of the decreases used, so I'll knit them in the round and then seam them in.

Now, for the Socktober portion of our program. I have three projects in mind to complete/work on this month:

1 - Anna socks from Rowan 40. I swatched, which was particularly important since the Lisa Souza yarn knits up on smaller needles. It's a very stretch stitch pattern:

That's the 48-stitch swatch on my foot (along with a ribbon I had handy.) The swatch goes about halfway up my calf (no photo available - I refuse to publish the forest currently masquerading as my legs.) I tried the sock on after I finished the ribbing, because I had a hard time believing it was going to fit over my gastrocnemius muscle. It did, miracles of miracles.

2 - Write up the pattern for my Toasty Toes socks. I've been meaning to do this, but I've been slacking. (Hell, witness the mystery design that still needs endweaving, photography and writing up for submission.) I need better pictures of those as well, and then I'll box them up and mail them out.

3 - Start design work on Mom's Christmas present. I know what stitch pattern I want to use, but I need to figure out spacing and some other logistical things - I want to do a princess foot since the stitch pattern is worked in reverse stockinette, but that means the figure-eight toe has to be in reverse stockinette, as does the heel. OK, they don't HAVE to be, but I want them to be. Which means I need to figure out how to do both. (There's a reason this is "Start design" not "finish design"!)