A Happy Fuzzy Blog

Planting myself

So I moved a few months ago.  Oh, didn't I tell you?  Oh, right, I have this kind of anxiety thing where I feel like if you all know where I live, some crazed lunatic might show up and kill me or something.  Not a knitter of course.  Some of you might be a bit loopy (heh heh, loopy!), but you're not dangerous. But of course all kinds of people besides knitters end up reading this (some pretty strange searches land people here).  It finally occurred to me though that a crazed lunatic could show up anywhere (not that I'm inviting any crazed lunatics to show up, no sirree Bob), and hell, I could get hit by a truck next week for that matter (I have to say, I'm not fond of Kroger delivery trucks or white pickups).

So basically I decided I need to just start living my life.  I was tired of feeling like I couldn't tell you about all the cool stuff where I live now or show you pictures.  I really like it here, and there's cool stuff to show you, so time to get on with it.  Cool thing number one?  I have a garden now.  Look! Little eggplants!  Aren't they the cutest thing ever?

And monster tomato plants, full of a zillion tomatoes, all green, because I forgot about the difference between determinate and indeterminate when I bought the plants.  D'oh.

We'll call that a learning experience.  I'll get it right next year. This year?  Looks like I'll be drying some tomatoes.

And could a knitter/spinner have a garden without lambs ears?

No, one could not.

And I had to plant one of my very most favoritest plants of all time, lobelia siphilitica.

Another cool thing about living here?  There's a chipmunk who visits my back porch regularly.  It actually relaxes there.  How often do you get a chance to see a chipmunk relax, up close?  Pretty darn cool.

I have a basement now where I set up a fiber studio.  It's great, though I need to get an ipod or something at some point so I can listen to music and/or podcasts while I'm working.  I haven't been dyeing that much though because I've been spending so much time in the garden.  The dyeing might turn into a seasonal thing.  I've got some ideas though.

Another cool thing?  I finally got rid of that hideous $20 couch that looked like I only paid 20 bucks for it and bought a real couch.  It's red.  It's very attractive.  It's very comfortable.  I like it very much.*

Rudy likes it too because not only can he go behind it, he can go under it.  I knew he would like that about it.  He likes the fresh food from my garden I grow just for him too.  Ok, I don't grow the dandelion greens just for him, but if they're in my garden, they're his, and they make him happy.  I do grow parsley, dill, basil and mint for him (the mint is in a pot, not in the ground.  It's nowhere near the ground.  I'm no fool).  I was growing cilantro, but it went to seed really fast.  I've tried getting the seeds to germinate, but they don't want to.  Any hints from successful cilantro growers?

Also, rabbit people take note.  Want to make your bunny happy?  Buy a zabuton.  A zabuton is a meditation cushion.  I bought one for myself to sit on to meditate.  I put it on the floor in my living room.  Rudy decided it was his.  Immediately.  Obviously I had bought him a bunny mattress.  He likes it very much.

Usually he's very camera shy.  He won't let me anywhere near him with the camera.  But he didn't want to get off the zabuton, so he let me come close to him even though I had the weird shiny, clicky thing.  Of course I can't really use the zabuton myself now, unless I want to spend five minutes brushing rabbit hair off of it first every time I want to sit on it (I brush him all the time, but he grows new hair and sheds as fast as I can brush him.  Sometimes I wonder if brushing him just stimulates new hair growth.  But he won't let me brush his belly.  No way, no how). 

But I have a happy bunny!  And honestly, is there anything cuter than a bunny washing his face?

*And I know some of you looked at the photo of the couch and zoomed right in on the basket of knitting on the floor

and you're saying, "Hey!  Whatcha knittin"?!  Are you gonna tell us about it?  Are you gonna show us?  Are you?  Huh?  Huh?  Are you?"

Alright.  I will show you.  I'm making this.

Anne Hanson's Hypotenuse Scarf using some of my handspun blue faced leicester.  It's yummy.  I'm making it to go with my yellow parka, which needed a nicer scarf to go with it than the ratty old thing I was wearing with it, which made me feel like some kind of refugee.  This is so much nicer.  After I started it, of course, I realized that the coat is two sizes too big for me now because I've lost 30 pounds since last fall, and I'll probably lose even more weight by this winter, but I can pull the drawstring in at the waist and around the bottom so wind doesn't go up the back.  I don't want to buy another coat until my weight stabilizes (I've lost the last 5 lbs just in the last two months, so I guess I haven't stabilized yet).

Anyway, when I do buy another coat, I want another bright yellow one like the one I've got, or a bright green, the same color as my jacket.  Something that says to motorists as I'm crossing the street in the dark, "Hi!  See me!  Don't hit me!," not "SPLAT!  AAAAAGHHH!  CRUNCH!"  If you know what I mean.  I see so many coats in dark drab colors, and I'm thinking, uh, no, not so much.  I don't want to be squashed.  I like being alive.

If the glasses of frustration are more than half full...

So I got my new glasses.  Notice how you don't see a picture of me wearing them?

I picked them up in the shop over a week ago, realized these are going to take some getting used to, and they showed me how to look up, look down, how to tilt my head down to look at the floor instead of just looking down with my eyes...  Things looked a little weird, but ok, I thought, I can get used to this.  It'll just take time.  And then I took them off, put my sunglasses on to go out into the blinding sunlight, and went home.

I got home, sat on the couch, took off my sunglasses, put on the bifocals, and everything was blurry.  No matter what I looked at, if I looked straight at it, it was blurry.  The trees out the window, the dining room chairs, my spinning wheel, the Buddha on the table...it was all blurry if I looked straight at it.  If I tilted my head down and looked through the top of the lenses, then everything came into focus.

But I can't spend the majority of my day with my neck bent and my eyes looking "up" just to look forward.  That's a one way ticket to Migraineville.  I spent about 10 minutes wearing them, trying to figure out if I was missing something, then realized I was starting to get a headache, and what's more, that I was starting to think of them as "the bifocals of death," so I took them off and put my old glasses on.

So the next morning I took them back to the shop.  They spent a lot of time adjusting them so they weren't quite in the same place when I wore them, and that did help a little bit, but not quite enough.  They had to remake them.

Well, ok.  I can understand how sometimes something might not be perfect the first time.  Kind of like reknitting a sleeve.  Cough.

So about a week later I picked them up again.  This time when I looked straight ahead, things were in focus.  Cool.  And when I looked down, I could read.  Well, that was nifty.  So I figured everything was just peachy.

Oh, did I say, "I figured"?

Sigh.  I did.

When I wore them for longer than I had in the shop, I started noticing things.  Like they made my eyes really tired.  After only half an hour my eyes ached.  It felt like everywhere I looked other than straight ahead, the world was blurry.  I understood I needed to move my head up and down to look at things, but I had to move my head from side to side too.  It felt like I was wearing glasses with lenses about half the diameter of a dime.  Everything to the side of that was blurry.  Was that normal with progressives?  (I found it hard to believe it would be, but what did I know?)  Would regular bifocals not be like that?  Was this just the wrong prescription?  Also, I was sure that the prescription for close up was wrong because I could actually see a little better without the glasses than with, and that wasn't right!

I called the doctor's office and they had me come in to verify that the glasses were made to the prescription as ordered (they were), and to retest my eyes.  I ended up with quite a different prescription.  Not just different numbers than before, but numbers written in the axis and cylinder columns for one eye, which I never had before.  Yikes, I'm getting complicated eyes now.  So I'm not sure what happened before.  Maybe I tried too hard to read the tiny letters I really couldn't read last time.  "G, or maybe that's an O...P, Z, or it could be a 7..."  But surely that didn't sound confident?

This time I made it clear that sometimes there were things I could barely make out, but they were blurry.  So they're going to remake the glasses again with the new prescription, and if I'm lucky, this time they'll be right.  They can't possibly have to remake them as many times as I've reknit the sleeves that still aren't right, right?  Right?  Right?

As far as those sleeves go, I've kind of figured out more or less what I need to do, but I haven't worked out the numbers yet, and I don't really feel like even looking at the sweater right now.  Let's just say the sweater has to go sit in a corner for a month because it's been naughty.  After it's had time to think about what it's done, I'll forgive it and do what needs to be done with the sleeves and finish it and all will be well and we'll live happily ever after together.  Yeah, that's it.  And then vegan oatmeal raisin cookies will grow on trees.

Ahem.  Anyway, for now I'm practicing project monogamy with my sock, and wow, socks go really fast when you just knit them and nothing else!  I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise, but usually they're just my bus knitting, so it's 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there, 30 minutes here...it all adds up, and over time I get a lot of socks knit, but man, spending a couple of hours just knitting the sock gets so much sock done!  It's amazing!  Well, if you're amazed by simple things, like I am, anyway.

Stupid stupid stupid sleeves from hell

Shit.  Shit shit shit.  Shit goddamn fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck.

Ok, I'm pissed.  (And I assume any of you who are offended by swearing probably don't even read my blog, so, um, yeah.  Hi.)  I've had a migraine for two days, and aside from sleeping away large portions of the day, one of the few things I can do is knit.  If I try to do anything that involves moving or thinking at all, ow, that's bad.  Railroad spikes, pounding, stabbing, squeezing eyeballs, bad bad bad.  So no moving.  No thinking.  Sitting motionless, doing mindless stockinette in a dark room?  I can do that.  Ah, sweet endorphins.

So since all I've been doing for the past two days is knitting and sleeping, I managed to finish the second sleeve of the sweater I've been working on since last summer.  You know the one.  The one I had to redesign about three times, and then when I worked out a design I liked, I had to redo the first sleeve about 4000 seven times to get it to fit right.  But fit right it did.  I had the sense to realize that all my sleeves always end up too short because I finish the sleeves before I do the front bands and collar, and then when I do those it pulls the shoulders higher, so before finishing the first sleeve I went ahead and did the bands and collar, then went back to the sleeve.  I tried it on over a long sleeved shirt since that's how I would be wearing it, measured several times, knit more, tried it on again, knit more, tried it on again, etc.  It was perfect. 

And then I made the second sleeve exactly the same as the first.  They are exactly the same length. 

So when I finished the second sleeve, I figured, well, I should try it on before I start working all the ends in.  And I did.  And both sleeves are indeed the same length.  Nearly an inch too short.

Fuck!

I will repress the urge to burn it...for now.

I will repress the urge to throw the whole thing into the dumpster...for now.

I will repress the urge to throw the whole thing into one of those collection boxes for clothing for homeless people they have all over town...for now.  Mainly because it isn't actually finished, and geez, if I'm going to give something to a homeless person, it should at least be wearable.

But...I don't get it.  And I can't even start thinking about it now because thinking = railroad spikes.

If I wasn't a person who was absolutely freezing all winter, I'd say "screw sleeves" and just knit vests.  But I freeze in the winter.  I need sleeves.

Or I would knit shawls except I wear a backpack everywhere I go.  Shawls and backpacks just really don't work so well together.

I really need to figure out what the hell I'm missing.  Why can I never get my sleeves the right length?

Oh fuck.  I'm going to go work on my sock.

It's Official

Well, it's official.  I'm old now.  (At this point half of you are saying, "Riin, you are not old," and the other half are saying, "Well, duh, we knew that, so what's your point?")  I'm getting my first pair of bifocals. I've realized for quite a while that I needed them, but I've been putting off going for an eye exam because glasses are fucking expensive, and bifocals even more so.  But I really couldn't put it off any longer.

I suppose maybe bifocals mean I'm officially middle-aged rather than old, though I knew a kid in my elementary school who wore very thick bifocals. That seems to be pretty unusual though.  It seems to be something people start with in their 40's, no?  So I'll be officially old when?  When I start menopause?  At my last physical my doctor asked me if I was still having periods.  Ok, that freaked me out a little.  I kind of felt like, "I'm only 43!  How old do you think I am?"  But I guess some women start menopause in their early 40's.

I'm mostly joking when I say I'm old.  I don't really feel old.  On the other hand, I'm not ashamed of being 43.  I am the age I am, and I feel better and look better than I did 20 years ago.  I'm in far better health now.  My eyes aren't as good, but the rest of me is in a lot better shape. I weigh 100 pounds less than I did 11 years ago.  I eat a much healthier diet, I get a lot more exercise, and my head is more together.  I've figured out more about life.  It took time and experience, some good and some bad, to become the person I am today.

So I've got a lot of gray hair, and I'm getting more all the time.  That's fine.  I have no intention of dyeing it.  I think it's pretty.  And I'll tell anyone how old I am.  I really don't understand women who lie about their age.  My mom tells people she's 39.  Um, so she gave birth to me four years before she was born?  Well, that's one for the tabloids.

Anyway, I wonder if there is some definition of what age is young, what's middle-aged, what's old, or if it's just relative, i.e., I'm old compared to the 22-year-old students who work for me, but young compared to my mom (even if she is "39" -- right, Mom), or if it just varies by individual? I mean, you know how sometimes you meet two different people and you find out they're the same age, but you'd swear one was 15 years older than the other?  I think I used to be older than I am now in some ways.

In any case, I'll have my new glasses in about a week.  I got violety/purple frames that really rock it with my gray hair, and I swear, that color looks good with all of my clothes.  I realized later it's actually the same color as my shoes!

I'll take a picture of myself wearing them once they arrive.  It'll be nice to be able to see.  Er...could you guys buy some of my stuff so I don't have to start naming colorways things like "I bought new glasses and now I'm broke"?  Unless someone actually wants a colorway with that name. I guess I could dye it for you.  (Hmm...now I'm thinking about what that would look like.  Well, maybe I'll have to dye it anyway...)

And now, I know what you're saying.  You're saying, "Riin, you keep saying you're going to show us knitting pictures.  Well, where are they?  Are you just all talk and no action?  Where are they, girl?  Cough 'em up!"  I know, I know, I'm the world's worst blogger.  Well, here they are, finally.  First, the purple and blue sock I finished...uh...well, when it was still cold enough to wear socks.  So a few months ago.  Ahem.

Next, my Tigers on Estrogen socks, which I knit using Anne Hanson's Smokin' Socks pattern.

Now you might be thinking they look awfully skinny for my size 8.5 feet and sexy muscular legs, but ah, Anne was sneaky!  Look how stretchy they are!

I'd model them for you, but it's just too hot for me to wear socks right now.  You'll have to use your imagination.  Uh, unless you're some pervert with a foot fetish, then go away, ya weirdo! 

Finally, here's my sock in progress, and I do believe it's my favoritest sock ever.

I'm in love with it.  It's almost the same as the Crocus sport weight I still have one skein of in the shop; the greens just came out a little bit darker in this one (they were from the same dyepot).  Happy happy...

Sigh...I still need to show you my sweater, which is almost finished.  But that will have to wait till next time.  I need to go to bed.  (Have mercy!  I need sleep!)

Oh, am I actually supposed to post once in a while?

So, I guess I just haven't really felt like blogging lately.  Stuff happens, and I think "oh, that would be a good thing to blog about," and then I never get around to it.  The blogging bug seems to have un-bit me.  But I'll see if I can give you a pathetic rundown of what's been going on before I leave to go grocery shopping.

I'm almost done with my alpaca/wool cardigan.  I redid the ribbing at the bottom and did the front bands and collar all in corrugated rib with the brown for the purl and the multicolored for the knit, and it looks cool.  I'm almost done with one sleeve, and it's actually the right size this time, so I just have to finish that and do the other sleeve.  (No time right now for photos or I'll have to take a later bus.)  I bought buttons for it yesterday when I went to Knit-A-Round for World Wide Knit in Public Day.  We sat outside and took turns knitting on a monster scarf with 25 mm needles.  Yes, 25 mm.  I didn't leave out a decimal.  US size 50.  It took me a while to get the hang of knitting with needles that huge.  They were like freaking broom handles.  Bizarre.

Let's see, what else...I finished the socks I was knitting.  Started two more pairs.  Yeah, this would be a lot better with photos.  I've been spinning.  I still need to photograph the yarn I finished a couple of months ago.  I just haven't felt like taking pictures.  Haven't felt like dyeing either.  I guess it's something I really just feel like doing in spurts.  I enjoy doing it when I'm doing it, but I really can't do it full time.  I've been thinking about what direction I want to take the business, since it seems the only way I can grow is if I really do the dyeing full time on top of my full time library job.  If I were one of those super-energetic people who can thrive on only 3-4 hours of sleep a night, that might be doable.  I am not one of those people.

I need time to do other things as well, to pursue other interests, to meditate, to relax, to get enough sleep, or I become depressed and physically ill. 

And yet, I don't want to give up the business entirely.  And I don't think I have to.  I just have to give up the idea of having it grow.  I just have to accept that I dye when I feel like dyeing.  The muse shows up when she wants to.  She's not at my beck and call. 

Of course, the IRS is going to want me to show a profit eventually if I'm going to call myself a business.  Um, yeah.  A profit would be nice.

Ok, time to catch the bus.

Life is good

Last night I got to see two of my favorite people, Stephanie and Lynn.

It was a hoot from the time I got there.  The original plan was that Lynn and her friend Rae would get there earlier than me and save me a seat.  But then I got an email from Lynn that afternoon saying they wouldn't be able to get there until later, but that Rachael would be there earlier and save us all seats.  Just one catch.  Neither Rachael nor I had ever met each other, nor did we have any idea what the other looked like. 

So when I got there at 5:40 and the room was full except for saved seats, I did the only thing I could do.  I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Is there a Rachael here who's supposed to be saving seats for me, LynnH, and Rae?"  A hand shot up at the front of the room and a voice rang out, "I'm her mother!"  Hey!  Alright!  Second row!  Hi, Rachael's mom!

Rachael came in a little later, so I got to meet her, and then Lynn and Rae showed up about 15 minutes before Stephanie.

Steph gave a great talk as always.  She compared knitters to Buddhist monks, which is great company to be in.  I want to read more about the physical changes in the brain she was talking about because that stuff fascinates me.  I think if I were forced to go into a medical field I would choose neurology or public health.  (What can I say?  I see medical journal articles every day.  Those are the ones that grab my interest the most.)  Her talk also made me think I should knit more.

After her talk I had her hold my sock.

Then I had Lynn hold my sock.

Then Lynn, Rae and I went to Seva for dinner.  Wonderful food, wonderful conversation.  It was a great evening.

As I sat knitting my sock on the bus ride home, I thought how fortunate I am to live in Ann Arbor, a destination city.  I had overheard a lot of people say where they had come from, and a lot of them had come quite far.  I had just left work and walked for 15 minutes to get to AADL.  And after I left Seva, I just had to walk for a minute or two to get to the bus station, then take a half hour bus trip home, during which I could knit.  I'm so lucky to live in a city where events are held.   Next weekend, the Dalai Lama.  It all keeps coming back to Buddhist monks, doesn't it?

My life is good.  I'm glad I made the choices I made, which gradually rebuilt my life into what it is today.  I like my life the way it is.  Happiness is sweet.

Mmeh

I'm home with a migraine, so this might be a bit whiny and incoherent (or maybe just more whiny and incoherent than usual) so, um, sorry.  But remember the sweater I've been working on, like, forever?  The one whose sleeve I've frogged and reknit about 400 times now?  Yeah, that one.  I frogged the sleeve again last night.  I swear this is turning into some knitterly version of Groundhog Day.  Knit half a sleeve.  Frog it.  Knit half a sleeve.  Frog it.  Knit half a sleeve.  Frog it.  Knit half a sleeve.  Frog it.  I swear, if my clock radio starts playing Sonny & Cher singing "I got you Babe" one morning, I'm going to frog the whole damn thing.  It's cursed.

The sleeve I just frogged was a lot smaller than the last one, but still way too big.  I feel like I really don't know how to design sweaters for the body I have now.  I don't have any sweaters that fit.  I have one sweater that almost fits, but it clashes horribly with several of my shirts.  I've making this sweater in progress specifically to go with those shirts.  I have a gray sweater that lives at work; it goes with everything, but it's now huge on me.

The thing is, I've lost another 4 pounds in the last month.  So it strikes me that I'll probably continue to lose weight until my body decides, "Oh, ok.  This is the weight I'm supposed to be.  Right."  I have absolutely no idea what that weight will be or what size that will be.  (You people who got here by googling weight loss, I'm not trying to lose weight.  I just switched from lacto-ovo vegetarian to vegan about 6 months ago.  I eat a lot of food, but no animal products, except for honey in my tea.)  So I'm wondering, not only will this sweater be a lot looser than I planned by the time I ever finish it, but will all of the shirts I planned to wear it with be way too big next fall?  Some of them are already pretty loose.  Hmm.

I think maybe I should wait a few months to start the Cobblestone sweater.  I still need to make a scarf for next winter, and I can never have too many socks... 

In the meantime, I started the sleeve again last night, this time picking up fewer stitches.  If this doesn't work, well, you know, I don't know what I'll do with it.  I'm getting kind of tired of looking at it.  I've been knitting it for so long, it should be done by now, and I'm getting pissed off at it for being cursed.  I know, it's not its fault that my brain still thinks I'm the size I was years ago, and the yarn is really soft, so I can't really be mad at it...because it's soft...and fuzzy...  How can you be mad at something soft and fuzzy?  Damn.

Hey, you know what?

I figured something out.  If I wait until I have time to take photos of everything I want to show you that I'm talking about, it's going to be another month between posts again.  So while throwing a bunch of words at you with no pictures isn't as much fun, for me or for you, it's probably better than blogging so infrequently that you all start wondering if you should send out a search party to look for me.

So, you know the sweater I've been working on?  The one whose sleeve in progress I showed you and then said, "Though now that I look at it, the sleeve looks like a lot of fabric.  Hmm."? I frogged the sleeve again.  Twice.  My problem is, wait, make that part of my problem is, I just don't know what size I am.  I mean my body image hasn't caught up with reality.  I made a lot of sweaters that fit well when I weighed 265 lbs.  Then I lost a lot of weight.  Then I lost more weight.  And then I started knitting this sweater.  And now I get to the other part of the problem, which is I've lost more weight since I started the sweater.  So it's going to be a bit looser than I had planned. But it'll still fit better than any of my other sweaters.  Once I get the sleeves right anyway.

See, my problem is I'm having a hard time getting it through my head that smaller body doesn't just mean smaller circumference torso, it also means smaller circumference arms.  Duh.  I need to make narrower sleeves.  I thought I was, but it didn't work out that way.  I think I just look at numbers that they possibly should be and think that can't possibly be right so I make them bigger.

I'm really not used to my body being this size.  I weigh 171 lbs now. This is the smallest I've ever been in my adult life.  Other people who've lost a lot of weight, how long did it take your body image to catch up to reality?

The good news is this yarn holds up to frogging amazingly well.

I'm just frustrated, I guess.  I mean, it's not like I'm in danger of becoming underweight or anything, so my weight loss isn't a bad thing.  It's just that my body is a stranger to me.  It kind of freaks me out.  And I've been working on this sweater for so long, it feels like I really should be finished by now.

But I got a lot done on it today.  Amy was at AADL today being her cool self.  I didn't think to take any pictures (I was getting a bit of a headache because I went too long without eating), so you'll just have to take my word that I was there.  Because you know, it takes so much effort to get to AADL, what with it being right across the street from the bus station and all, I might be making it up about going.  Um.  Yeah.  Anyway, I got about 3 1/2 hours of knitting done.  Amy is funny and talks very fast.  She was talking about No Sheep for You, and while I love my wool, I was interested in hearing about the properties of the other fibers and yarns.

One thing that occurred to me later was, if a person has a soy allergy, i.e., they react when they eat it, would they also react if they worked with or wore soy fiber?  Or is the allergen destroyed during processing?  The same thing with the other fibers made from food for that matter.  I just thought of soy because I've developed an allergy to it, but she mentioned fibers made from corn and milk.

Anyway, like I said, I love my wool, and I've been dyeing up a storm.  I've got a pile of wool top on my table that I just want to roll around in or eat or something.  I guess it wouldn't really be so good to eat.  Kinda hairy.  But the colors are so pretty.  It looks like it would taste good.  I should have it for sale in  the shop soon. 

I started spinning the top I dyed a few weeks ago.  It is so nice!  It's so easy to predraft!  It's so easy to spin!  I'm in love!  I'm gushing, I know, but sometimes my wool makes me so happy, I feel like if only everyone in the world would spin, we'd have world peace.  I am a dork.

But hey, nothing wrong with being a dork, right?

Oh, you want an update of what I've been doing?

Yeah, I thought so.  I haven't been a very good blogger lately.  I've been doing stuff, but not showing you.  What fun is that?

So.  It's Show and Tell Day here at Acme Acres.  First off, I finished my punk grrl socks.  They rock, as they should.

Now that the bus socks are finished, the former desk sock has now moved into bus sock rotation.  I really like the way the two color stripeyness is doing its thang here.

And I just cast on for another desk sock, giving Tigers on estrogen another go.  It just wasn't meant to be a Jaywalker (way too tight unless I wanted to use 12,000 stitches per round, more or less), but I've used this yarn in another colorway with Anne Hanson's Smokin' socks, and they fit great (with just 72 stitches per round), so I'm using that again, and isn't it tigery?!

I'm making progress on the sweater, though since I'm designing it the progress isn't entirely forward.  Heh.

I finished the ribbing on the bottom and along one front edge (I figured I would wait until I have buttons to do the other side's edge so I don't make the buttonholes too large or too small).  Then I decided the ribbing at the bottom edge really pulls in too much and I needed to do it over. I was kind of ribbinged out by then though, so I decided to do the sleeves first and come back to the ribbing.  So I picked up the stitches for the first sleeve and worked in the round toward the wrist until it was about half done and tried it on, and decided that I didn't like the way it was hanging, and the angle of decrease was too slow.  So I frogged back to the pickup row, then did short rows, then continued in the round decreasing every 5th row instead of every 6th.

This whole project has been kind of a two steps forward one step back thing, but I think it might work this time.  Though now that I look at it, the sleeve looks like a lot of fabric.  Hmm.

I've finished spinning the yarn for the Cobblestone cardigan, washed it, and it's hanging to dry.

I think it's my new special friend.

I'm spinning some yarn to make a scarf because my old scarf is kind of ratty and it's fucking cold here and I'm so sick of winter PLEASE SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP!!!



Aaaaannnddd...I dyed some wool!  No, really!  Look!

You know what's really cool?  I dyed all of that in one dyepot, all together.  It was totally mad science, which is the funnest kind of art. I swear, I was yelling "Mad!" during the process, which tells you I was inspired, and also that I was just totally obsessing on the mad science concept but that's Shaenon's fault.  Heh heh heh.

Since it's still experimental (because it is mad science, after all), I'm still figuring out how much dye I should use, and that would be, uh, less than I actually used.  This had a lot of excess dye molecules.  I rinsed it several times and dye was still coming out, and I didn't want to rinse it too much more because I didn't want to felt it.  Right now it's beautiful -- no felting at all, so I'm going to spin it and then wash the yarn some more to get the rest of the excess dye out.  I need to do some more dyeing (hee hee, more mad science!) and experiment until I get some fiber than rinses clear before I can sell it as fiber.

Hmm, what else to tell you about?  Oh, yeah.  I seem to have developed an allergy to soy.  Isn't that just a kick in the head?  I had found some stuff with tofu in it that I had grown rather fond of, and a soy-based salad dressing that was rather good on my veggie sandwich, and I've been forced to face the reality that every time I eat any of it, before I'm even finished, my lips and surrounding area feel weird, like everything is about to turn red and swollen and itchy.  It lasts a little while and then returns to normal, though the little while has been getting a little longer, and the affected area has been getting a little larger.  I guess I need to just stop eating it.  I went an entire week without it, and then had some of the dressing on my sandwich to see how I would react, and yeah, it was pretty clear that my body doesn't want this stuff in it. Crap.  So ok, no more soy.  I've been finding plenty of other things to eat.  Like I can put hummus on my sandwich instead of salad dressing.

People keep asking me how the vegan thing is going.  Aside from the soy allergy, it's going great.  I've been trying a lot of new foods, and I've actually lost 15 pounds since I went vegan, despite eating till I'm stuffed and eating whatever I want.  The key is to only want to eat healthy food, not crap.  (Newest thing I've discovered: baked sweet potato with non-hydrogenated margarine, salt, pepper, and chives.  It's yummy!)

My problem now is I need to buy some clothes because the ones I'm wearing are too loose in ways that are driving me nuts.  I don't mind shirts being loose.  That's fine.  But when my bra isn't the right size, it's annoying as hell.  And when my pants are a size too big, it drives me nuts.  Have I mentioned one or 5347 times that I hate shopping?  I can just never find what I need, so it feels like a complete waste of time and a wretched chore.  There are so many things I'd rather be doing with my time, like knitting, or spinning, or dyeing wool.  Even shopping online is frustrating because I don't know what size I am anymore, and sizes are totally inconsistent from one brand to another.  Urgh.

10 things I've done

Dr. Steph had this meme on her blog today, and it looked like fun.  Ten things I've done that others likely haven't.  Well, this should be easy since I tend to be a freak unusual different.  Will I be able to stop at 10?

1.  I was salutatorian of my high school graduating class.

2.  I used to work as a jewelry designer in a bead store.  A customer received a compliment on a necklace I had made from the queen of Sweden.

3.  I used to sell some of my jewelry in art galleries.

4.  I have only ever gone on a diet once in my life.  (Of course I gained all the weight back and more.  That part isn't unusual.)

5.  I have lost 80 pounds through lifestyle changes, i.e., not dieting, and kept the weight off for over nine years.

6.  I quit eating mammals and fish about 20 years ago, then became vegetarian about 9 years ago, and have gradually cut out more and more animal products since then.  I'm now about 99.9% vegan.  The only animal products I consume are honey in my tea, and whatever is in a piece of birthday cake if someone hands me one.

7.  I quit drinking pop years ago.

8.  I quit driving a car for environmental reasons.  I have not driven since October 27, 2002, and I don't intend to drive again.

9.  My first knitting project was a sweater from Vogue Knitting.  (I didn't know any other knitters to tell me most people start with a scarf or hat or something like that.)

10.  I figured after I had knit a sweater I knew how to knit and didn't need patterns anymore, so I designed my second sweater myself.  (see #9)

I could actually keep going -- there are a lot of other not so usual things about me -- but I'm up to ten, so I'll stop.