Shawl photos

So, um, I forgot to post those pictures of me wearing my April Wedding Shawl for the Cabin Cove Along.



I want to take some nice pictures of the shawl by itself to send to Dave for his gallery, but alas, I have been putting it off. I'd like to take them outside, but that means I'm going to have to wait for nature to cooperate. Maybe this weekend.

As for the rest of my Cabin Cove stash, I'm feeling a little apathetic about the projects I have started or planned for it. I was making a pair of socks for my Roommie as a gift, but they are wool socks and he is going to be moving to South Carolina and I'm wondering how much he's really going to need wool socks. So, I need to to think about that a little bit. That and the fact that I'm worried I may run out of yarn for his humongous feet, and I'm thinking maybe I should think about making those socks for my husband who doesn't have sasquatch feet and find a nice bamboo/wool blend or cotton/wool blend, or soy/wool blend for Roommie.*

I still want to make a shawl with the grey laceweight, but it's been pretty warm in Chicago lately and I have this burning desire to make a tank top.

So, with one thing and another, I've been neglecting the Cabin Cove. But, I'm not worried about it. I'm certain that I will soon hear the siren call of the Victorian Lace Today and want to knit up that shawl and everytime I see the started socks, I feel their pain--the pain of neglect--so it's only a matter of time before I pick them up again.

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Lab is still lab but fortunately not as crazy as it was yesterday, so maybe the Laws of the Universe are settling down and taking a break from trying to screw me over. Hey, I can dream, can't I?


*Yes, I know, my husband lives in Southern California, shouldn't that be worse for wool socks? But you forget that he goes to the telescope on the top of the mountain in Hawaii and it's very cold there (winter coat cold) and so for one week out of every six, he'll be needing warm socks, at least for the forseeable future.

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.

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.

Guess what?!

April Wedding Shawl, Socks, Ballband Washcloth

My camera has been found!

I lost my camera while waiting for Roommie/M to finish being grilled by his committee. As soon as we were up at the party, I went to fish out my camera from my bag. No camera. So, I ran down to where we were sitting before and no camera. I knew I should check with lost and found but I was in denial. If I never check if it's at lost and found, I don't know for sure it's been stolen and lost forever, I thought. Well, yesterday, M sent me an email. Someone in the office had emailed him about it. Yippie!!!!!
I just blocked this shawl last weekend. I've been working on it off and on for 2 or 3 years now. The pattern was free from Lion Brand. It actually calls for a bulky yarn, but I modified it. I had this wool/silk yarn from Blackberry Ridge Mill that I had tried making a different shawl with. After ripping that one out several times, I gave up and went for this one. I adore it. I want to wear it all the time. I want to make five more shawls. Right now we are having the perfect weather for wearing a shawl as an outer garment and I think in California it will be even better.

My strategy for working on this shawl was as follows: have perfect shawl weather, knit a few inches, weather changes, stop working on it; get sick, want shawl to wrap up in, knit a few more rows, get better, stop working on it (you can see why it took so long to finish). I had the knitting done by the very end of my last bout of the flu so I wrapped up in it even though it hadn't been blocked. I finally got around to blocking it last weekend. I actually could only block half of it at a time because only half of it would fit on my bed at a time.

Have I mentioned I adore it?

As for the April Wedding Shawl, I am about halfway done with the center panel. The markers in the picture above mark 20 repeats (they are 2-row repeats). I need to stick another marker in there. I have just over 60 repeats done and I need to do 132 total. Then there is a pointy border that is around 15 stitches at it's peaks. The wedding is at the end of the month, so I should be able to finish. Especially since my cable is getting hooked up tomorrow! Hooray! Back to TV watching + shawl knitting. And I will have high-speed internet so no more uploading pictures at work. Hooray!

Sorry, but it's 60 degrees here and sunny and it feels like spring and I'm feeling a little giddy. I ate lunch outside today. My seasonal affective disorder is devolving into spring mania.

Hooray!

But wait, you also get--

--the flu!

Like many other people I know, I got a flu shot. Then, this week, I caught a cold (probably from A who had one as well). Much mucus was produced. And then, it started: the fatigue, the getting winded from walking across the room, the fever, the achiness. Yes, it's the flu.

Contrary to popular belief, getting a flu shot does not mean you cannot get the flu. It just means you won't get the particular strains that you were vaccinated against. I just happened to be unlucky enough to get exposed to one of the thousands of other strains of flu out there. *le sigh*

So, I've pretty much been sitting at home, sleeping, drinking tea (decaf only, please, with echinacea if you've got it), grading genetics exams (what some of these children think is possible to see in a microscope is astounding!), and getting a little bit of knitting done.

The winner of the color contest is: Just Pink. Thank you for all of your input, but I went to The Man himself to ask about the colors and which he thought would go better with my dress (I included the picture) and my skin tone. And, because he is a first-rate gentleman, Dave emailed me back. Here is what he said about the colors:

I think with your
skin situation, the Just Pink would probably be a better choice. I think
the Pink Fire will fight with your skin tone. I'd say, with that dress,
either the pink or the medium Silver Grey.

So, I bought both the Just Pink and the Silver Grey. Just to see which I liked better. Besides, I've been wanting a grey shawl/wrap as well, so I figured it would be worth it just in case I decided I didn't like the way the pink went with the dress. It came on Monday (I know! I should've mentioned it sooner!) and I started with the simple lace shawl pattern in Victorian Lace Today (hereafter known as The April Wedding Shawl) in the Just Pink. By the way, I just have to mention that I love getting yarn from Dave. He wraps it up in tissue paper and ties it with raffia and includes a little bit of lavender in it to make it smell yummy. It's like buying something from a fancy boutique! Anyway, I'm glad I went with the Just Pink. On my screen, the colors were looking darker than they really were, more reddish, which I only know now that I have the Just Pink in hand and see that it is more like a mauvy rose than a fushia (which is what it looked like on my computer).* This is why I went straight to the source about my color dilemma since he was the only one who could see the real, true colors.

So far, I'm liking how the shawl is turning out . I'd show you a picture, but I'm on dial-up and you wouldn't believe how long it takes to upload a picture. Maybe next week. Anyway, I took that pic only about three inches into it (at which point, I held it up to Roommie and said, "Look! Only 55 more inches to go!") and I'm now at a foot and a half, so you can see the stitch pattern better. I'm supposed to do 132 pattern repeats and I have 46 done, so I'm a third of the way through the center panel. There is a border that is knitted on at the end, but it is not very wide so it shouldn't take very long. I've never knit on a border before, but the directions in the book are very clear and I'm no longer afraid of trying it!

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Thank you for all of your responses to my baby woes. John and I are talking and I no longer think I'm going to wait until I leave Chicago before trying to get pregnant. We shall see what the fates have in store for us on that front.

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Well, that's it for Chez Influenza. Tune in next time for more exciting knitting drama!


*I totally blame my computer for this. If you've ever seen Dave's photos, you know that they are works of art. I'm certain he took photos that correctly represented the colors, but different computer screens show colors a little differently as I'm sure many of you have found out!

So that would be Knitalong Wednesdays, then?

I meant to knit the Cabin Cove socks yesterday, really I did, but I utterly and completely forgot. So, I knit a few rounds on them this morning while I was sitting in front of my light box. I'm knitting both at the same time, toe-up. I started them toe-up because I was a little bit worried about running after yarn. And everytime I sit down to knit on them and look at those little balls of yarn, I'm a little more worried that I will run out of yarn. Especially when I think about how huge the first pair of socks was that I knit for him. So, my current plan is to do an afterthought heel. I've never done one before, but I'm thinking it can't be too hard. My reasoning is this: if I run out of yarn before finishing, I can make the heel and the cuff in a different color of yarn and it will look like I meant to do it that way.

I am contemplating buying more Cabin Cove yarn--one of the lace cakes. I have a wedding I'm going to where I'm going to wear this dress:

Me and John on our anniversary last year

(Please do not lecture me about wearing black to weddings, I don't have the money to buy another dress right now). I want to make one of the simplest patterns in Victorian Lace Today (a center panel of faggoting with a simple knit-on border--don't look at me like that, it's what they call the stitch!) to wear with the dress to the wedding. I'm thinking of buying either Pink Fire or Just Pink. I was originally going to go for the knitpicks alpaca and silk blend laceweight in a fushia, but then Dave updated his site and I like Dave: he seems nice, he has a pretty kitty, he shows pictures of Boston on his blog, and I'm doing this here knitalong, so why not? But, I'm hung up on which yarn to get. I just fired off an email to Dave asking his opinion (because I'm sure he has nothing better to do than give me fashion advice, yeah right), mostly because I'm always concerned about the appearance of the yarn color on my screen. I'm leaning heavily toward the Just Pink today (yesterday it was the Pink Fire, tomorrow I'll probably be back to Pink Fire). If I wait too long, it'll be sold out, I'm sure, and then I'll be up a crick without a paddle (crick = creek in midwest-speak). So, dimmi!* What do you think?

*That's Italian for "Tell me." My Italian professor used to say it all the time in class and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. We have a new post-doc from Greece and her accent sounds very much like Southern Italian and she's always saying, "Tellll me." Makes me long to visit Italy again.

By the way

I forgot to say the talk went well. I asked my advisor about it later. In knitting terms, the stranding on the inside was just the right tension, my seams were perfect, and the fit was good. Hooray! I am especially pleased by this because I want to be a professor and therefore I need to have good presentation skills.

In (real) knitting news, I have a few updates:

Baby Kimono from Mason-Dixon knitting:
Done in worsted weight, this is a quick knit! It's knit flat, then seamed up the sides and arms. The pattern calls for Sugar 'n Cream cotton, but I wanted something a little softer. So, I picked up some Peter Pan Velvet Touch which is a synthetic novelty yarn that is soft and fuzzy in a girly-girl colorway of purple, pink, and yellow. It's like it's screaming to be a baby garment. And it meets my standard criteria for baby knitting: machine washable. Because babies, they are messy and parents, they are tired. So, I have the back, one sleeve and most of one side of the front done. And I started on Monday. Okay, so this may not seem very quick to you, but trust me, it is for me, especially these days. Hopefully I'll have it done by the end of the weekend and then I'll just need some ribbons so that it can be tied closed and I can ship it off.

Grandma socks:
I started these socks from Regia Bamboo as my seminar knitting. I've got a cuff and part of the leg for one plain stockinette sock.

Cabin Cove socks:
I still have two toes and the beginnings of two feet. I haven't gotten any further because I need to pay attention to the pattern and I haven't had any time for that kind of knitting. I have faced the music and realized that my roommate is not getting these socks until next Christmas. But that's okay because that means I'm early for next year's Christmas knitting. I've decided though, to make Tuesday knitalong day. So every Tuesday, I'll knit on the Cabin Cove socks. Yeah. We'll see how long that lasts!

DON'T CRY OUT LOUD!!!!

JUST KEEP IT INSIDE!
LEARN HOW TO HIDE YOUR FEELINGS.......

When I was in college, one of my roommates did not like to cry in front of other people. So, even though we were the best of friends, if she was feeling really sad, she would not cry. This made for some awkward moments if we were talking about whatever it was that was upsetting her. So, to ease the tension, I would suddenly belt out at the top of my lungs, "DON'T CRY OUT LOOUUUUD!" At which point we would start giggling and the tension would be released. Having done that regularly for an entire semester and at various times since college, whenever I feel sad, that is the first thing that comes to mind.

John left for California yesterday afternoon. All in all, I think I handled it pretty well. After I dropped him off at the airport, went to Michaels and bought a sketch pad and some crayons and some wool/soy yarn from Patons that I've been wanted to try (only 2 skeins). Then, I went to the grocery store and bought a baguette and some goat cheese (mmmmmm.....goat cheese!) and some of that spreadable cheese with port wine in it and a few pears and red seedless grapes and a bottle of reisling and a small box of Lindt truffles and went home and took a nap and when I got up, I ate my cheese and fruit and had a glass (a mug actually because all of my wine glasses are in California) of reisling and watched Law and Order Criminal Intent and then SVU right after that and ate four of the truffles. Yes, I comforted myself by buying things and eating things but I bought a small number of inexpensive things and ate relatively healthy things (well, except for maybe the truffles and I only had four of them and there were 12 in the box). Not bad really. It could've been much, much worse.

On the knitting front, I remade Calorimetry so that it is a little shorter and fits more snugly on my head. I am wrapping the old Calorimetry around my neck inside my coat(it fits with about 3 inches to spare on each side) and tucking the ends to help keep my neck warm so I can use my scarf on the outside to cover my mouth because it is well below zero here these days (Celsius and Fahrenheit!). I finished the baby socks and need to send them to my friend. I finished the toes on my Cabin Cove socks (toe-up) and started the pattern but decided that I didn't like how it looked in this yarn (really needs a very light color to do the twisted stitches justice), so I switched to a different pattern in the book and had to revise it for the number of stitches I am using. Since I finished the baby socks, I was without a pair of mindless socks to knit in seminars and on the bus and so forth, so I started a pair for my grandmother out of Regia bamboo. You can never have too many socks on the needles.

So, today I am back in lab and life is back to "normal" and all in all I'm coping better than I did after the last time John visited so, yay me!

That's why he's a rocket scientist

I tend to forget how intelligent my husband truly is. If you lived with a man who suffered from GBB, you'd forget too. And really, how often can you tell someone not to wear two prints at the same time before you start thinking he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer?

However, the other day, when I was telling him about the socks I was making for our friends' baby (who was born in July or there-abouts), and complaining that I didn't know how big to make socks for a 6 month old, he came up with a simple answer. Look up pediatric growth charts. This was incredibly brilliant, but alas, they only have length, weight, and head circumference on those things. But, in my travels, I did find a chart for baby foot sizes on a website for shoes. According to Shoofly, a 6-9 month old baby needs a shoe that is 5 1/8 inches in length. This seems a little long to me, but what do I know? The sock I finished is just under 5 inches in length, heel to toe, which should probably be okay. Really wish I had my own baby to compare to. The second sock is on the needles and will likely be done by the end of the week.
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Tiny stitches

I usually knit socks on 2mm needles using fingering weight yarn. This generally means they take quite awhile to make. Like months. For Christmas, I've made socks with sport weight yarn on US4 needles and those just fly by! I do like how the stitches look at 9.5 stitches per inch, though. So tiny and perfect. No floppy stitches, just nice and even.

However. I'm not sure I want to devote the next three months to making these socks. So, I started swatching the Cabin Cove yarn using 2.5mm needles. I don't have enough done to get a good stitch count, but the stitches do look bigger.

Finished objects and what's on the needles

But no pictures. Sorry.

I finished the Red Scarf, but there's no pictures yet. I haven't gotten around to taking them. I have to hurry up, though, so that I can send it out on time!

I also started and finished Calorimetry in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Bittersweet. I love the bright colors and it's the perfect thing to spice up a grey winter day. But, I think it is a leeetle too big. While I was making it, I decided it was too wide, so I ripped back and did fewer short rows in the middle, but I think it should be more snug on my head, so I'm thinking of ripping the entire thing out and redoing it with fewer stitches (maybe 100 instead of 120). If it wasn't such a quick knit, I wouldn't even think of it, but I could redo it over the weekend, I think. I'm in the process of making matching mittens, too.

AND, I'm making a pair of baby socks for a friend. Someone I knew in college had a baby this summer and I made her a pair of socks and a hat. Apparently, the socks were a really big hit (she was using them as booties over the other socks so the baby wore them practically every day) but they are getting too small. So, I'm trying to make socks that would fit a 6-month old. I have no idea what size these socks should be. I looked at this site, though, and think I will make a sock that's 5 inches long unless that looks ridiculously huge. It would help if I had the dimensions of the original socks but of course I didn't record them anywhere. It would probably be easiest to ask the person the size of her child's foot. But, you know how it is, I'd ask and say I wanted to make some bigger socks and she'd say, "No, no, it's okay, you don't have to make more." "No, really," I'd say, "I'd like to make some socks, it's no trouble." "No, no, I don't want to bother you." "Seriously, it'll only take me a few hours, baby socks are small." And it would go back and forth and I'd never get the size of the child's foot. So, if you know any 6 month old babies out there, could you measure their feet? Thanks.

What else? Oh yes, I signed up for this:


I have a ball of sock yarn in Gingerbread that I wanted to make into socks as a Christmas gift for my roommate. For last Christmas. So, um, I should probably get started on those, huh?