Saturday, April 28, 2007

New shawl

Well, now that I've finished the April Wedding Shawl for the Cabin Cove-Along I'm starting a new shawl. I may have a "problem." I seem to have temporarily replaced my sock obsession with a shawl obsession (I have no idea why I say temporary, it could be permanant, though I think that very little can beat the sock for travel knitting).

The yarn is Cabin Cove merino Lace Cake in silver grey. I bought it at the same time I bought the pink for my (now finished!) AWS. The pattern is from Victorian Lace Today "A curved shawl with diamond edging." For those of you following along at home, the pattern starts on page 72. The center pattern reminds me of an heirloom baby bonnet I once saw (which, at the time, I thought was tatted, but now I'm not so sure) which I was fascinated with at the time. The difficulty is defined as "intermediate lace" and involves a "loop cast-on" (I'm not sure why since it's not a circular shawl) which I've redone about five times now trying to get it right. And I've started tinking already and I'm only on the third row. This may be partially due to the fact that I forgot to bring stitch markers with me and with lace, I like to put markers between repeats to make it easier to keep track of things. How I could make it anywhere without any stitch markers at all I don't know but I've dug through everything I have and nary a stitch marker to be seen. I did a search for LYS in the area and guess what! There is one, but it's closed on Sunday and Monday. :( So, I may be making a trip to walmart to see what they have.

I think my current obsession with shawls is partially based on my trips to California these past few months. While SoCal is maybe not the place to wear a heavily cabled sweater, the weather is perfect for shawls--particularly in the winter. When we'd go out at night, I'd just grab a wrap and as long as we didn't walk too far, it was perfect. I think I may also develop a strong interest in shrugs and little ballet wraps and cropped cardigans.

Finis!

I was up until 2am, but I finished the shawl and blocked it. All I have to do now is weave in the ends and there are only four of those so that shouldn't take too long.

Whew!

Friday, April 27, 2007

Delusional

I'm not really sure what made me think I could get my shawl done last night, but needless to say, it did not get done. Not even close. I wasn't happy with the way it looked when I turned the second corner. There were some funny stitches along the edge where I was attaching the border. I think I need to be a little more careful about how I slip my stitches on the center panel the next time around. Anyway, I redid the corner about 5 times (okay, more like three). Even taking that into account, I still wouldn't be done by now, but I'm even further behind that I thought I would be. I resisted the urge to stay home from lab today in order to finish it (finish the shawl or work toward graduation, hmmm, let me think about that for a moment; oh and I want to print out my boarding pass which I can't do until 2:05 and I don't have a printer at home), but I am going home early. Also, because I have no clean underwear and I really think I should have some before leaving. I mean, you have to have clean underwear in order to travel!

So, it looks like I may be blocking this thing in the hotel. I have already put my roommate on notice about this (she did not seem concerned or disturbed but then, she knits too). I'd still like to avoid that if I can because I'd like to carry on all of my luggage and I'm afraid the security people will not be in favor of me bringing 80 sharp pins on the plane with me (although, what could I do with them, really--block the living daylights out of the cheap blankets they give us? I mean as long as the pins aren't accompanied by little pilot voodoo doll, there really is nothing to fear).

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Two sides down

Only two more to go! I have the border done on one long and one short side of my shawl. This has taken me three days. I now have less than two days to do the rest of it. Will I make it?

Additionally, before I leave I must do laundry because, really people, it's getting out of control. And I need clean underwear to take with me.

And, I need to try on the dress I'm going to wear to the wedding to make sure it still fits. Because that would be bad if it didn't since I don't have a back-up dress.

Yes, it's as exciting as ever here at e-beth knits. Shawl and laundry and no pictures because I haven't found my camera cable yet and haven't been able to go anywhere to get a memory card reader yet. Don't worry. I definitely will take a picture of me wearing the shawl and I will show it to you, it just may take awhile for that to happen.

In other news, I'm obsessed with HGTV. Except for Buy Me because it's too stressful and people sometimes yell at their real estate agents and I don't need that kind of tsoris (my benchmate in lab is Jewish by the way--I've picked up quite a bit of Yiddish over the years; it's a very satisfying language). There's something so satisfying about home improvement shows. There was a problem and in half an hour, Presto Chango! the problem is fixed! Unlike my labwork which is maybe why I like the HGTV so much. In lab, I'll start the day with a problem and by the end of the day, I still have the same problem and it's not getting better. And then I start the next day with the same problem.

Why yes, I'm feeling a little frustrated with my labwork--how did you guess?

Anyway, I really like watching House Hunters because I like trying to guess which place they are going to pick. Unfortunately, the other night there was this girl on that was buying her first place and she had just finished medical school and there were two things that irked me. One was that she was able to get a "new doctor loan" which required no money down and had a low interest rate and so on and so forth and I sat there thinking, I bet you have to be a new medical doctor to get a loan like that and it made me a little bit angry. The other was that she said something to the effect of (in reference to just starting her residency), "I've never received a paycheck in my life." And I thought, how the hell does someone get to the age of 26 or whatever and never have had a paycheck?? How do they get money for things like food???? And then I felt all bitter thinking about how the first paycheck I ever got was when I was 14 and it was for working in the corn fields so that I could have money to buy my school clothes and nobody is going to give me a "new doctor loan" when I finish grad school and it is completely unfair that I have had to work my ass off all of my life and will have to continue doing so and I'm never going to get to buy a condo.

So maybe HGTV isn't so good for me afterall.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Peek-a-boo

I've been here, just hiding out behind a mountain of work!

The exciting news is that Friday I got to meet Kristen of Procrastinating in Pittsburgh! She was in Chicago--at U of C, actually--for a conference and we met up for dinner. She is every bit as charming and funny and witty in person as she is in her blog. I love meeting blogging friends. It still amazes me that I can meet and create friendships with people who are hundreds of miles away!

Additionally, I recently heard from a really good friend from college that I had sort of lost touch with. It was really good talking to her. I have to be better about maintaining my friendships. Really. It feels like there are so many people I just randomly stopped communicating with for no other reason than that life got in the way. But friends are a part of life and I need to take the time to keep in touch with them.

I am still working on my April Wedding Shawl for the CabinCoveAlong. I have started on the border. I'm probably about 1/5 of the way through the border. I'm getting a little nervous because the wedding is one week from today! I'm afraid I may join the ranks of the few, the proud, the people who block their shawl in the hotel room hours before they are supposed to wear it. It was not my intention to join this elite society, but I may be forced into it. Also, I need more blocking pins. Where can I get pins for $2/100 pins? Anyone know?

I wish I could show you a picture, but I seem to be missing the cable that connects my camera to my computer. I had it with me in California (went there the beginning of the month) but I haven't seen it since then. John swears it's not out there. I have a feeling though, that the next time I'm there, I'll take a 15 second glance around the place and locate it. In the meantime, I can't download pictures! I'm thinking about getting a memory card reader that plugs directing into the USB port. They aren't very expensive and it will probably be more convenient in the long run.

In other news, my sister is having a boy. She is naming him B. The same B as M's boyfriend and my boss. It could get a little confusing. Therefore, I have taken to referring to each of them with modifiers before their names. Boss-B, M's-B, and Baby-B. I am officially declaring a moratorium on that name.

I am going to try to be better about updating the blog but it turns out that the more I do on the computer at work the less I feel like spending time on the computer outside of work stuff. And I've been trying to keep all of my notes on the computer lately because I'm really tired of trying to track down pieces of paper on my desk and lab bench. So, that's a lot of computer time. On the plus side, I am getting more organized. Also, I am trying some note-taking software and it needs to be run on a computer with OX 10.3 or higher. In the meantime, the software I use to analyze DNA sequence can only be run on computers running something less that 10.3. Therefore, when I'm at work, I'm taking notes on my laptop and doing other things on my laptop. It makes me look like I'm getting a lot of work done. It also makes me look a little silly. Before you ask, yes, we could upgrade the sequencing software but it would cost $15000 to get the software for the whole lab. Yes, that is the correct amount of zeros! Needless to say, we aren't up for that yet!

Okay folks, it's time for bed.