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Posts Tagged ‘whining’

Distract me, please

09 Mar

From the irritation overwhelming me this fine Sunday afternoon. We’ve got the sun shining brightly on the mountains of snow … which I had to drive through, because the burglar alarm at the office was tripped. (This isn’t usually my duty, but I’m filling in while the regular gal takes care of some personal stuff.) And when I arrive, I find the guy who has really been pissing me off lately. He’s sitting at his desk, with his feet up, drinking coffee as if nothing was wrong.

WHY, I want to know, do people have so little consideration? Didn’t it occur to him that *someone* might have been notified about that great big clanging noise, the one that started 60 seconds after he entered the building? Did he think that everyone had just gone to lunch, and that’s why there were no cars in the lot? What a &$*(^ing idiot.

So, on to the distraction. I finished the second sleeve on Twist last night, and seamed until I remembered that “spring forward” means an hour less sleep, not more. This morning I’ve been running errands, doing laundry, driving all the way in to work for no reason, and baking a cake. Now it’s time for finishing.

I also have made an unusually large number of yarn acquisitions in the last 48 hours. I won’t have to worry about what I’m going to knit – only what I’ll knit next. Heaven!

 
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Posted in Knitting

 

Why can't we have a decent LYS?

24 Feb

I went out to East Rochester yesterday to look for yarn. Unfortunately, the store just isn’t the same under the new ownership. They’ve got a huge sale on, but no extra help; the shelves are arranged poorly; the yarn is all over the place, with no clear method to the madness; nothing has more than 3-4 skeins of each color displayed, but there is no one to look for more. Ugh.

I’d decided on Cascade 220 Heather for Twist. They had some colors, and some heathers too, but almost all browns, oranges & yellows. (Not the pale blue / lilac I was looking for.) There were some medium purples, and navy, but none of these would do. Besides, nothing had more than a couple skeins on display – do most of their customers knit hats & scarves?

I needed buttons, too, and recalled that they have a lot of buttons. But! they are all set up on the windowsills, and yesterday just happened to be quite sunny. I couldn’t even tell the color, let alone any texture or detail. And if I’m going to pay $2.50 or more per button, I’m not going to have to squint and guess to do it.

The one thing they did have was Interweave Knits Spring 2008, which is out of stock at Interweave. I renewed my subscription, finally, but got a notice that it won’t start until Summer because they’re out of stock.

So off we go to Brighton, LYS #2 on my all time list. She too is having a sale, but not nearly so busy. And she has plenty of help, not only finding a substitute for the Cascade (only limited shades in stock, nothing I wanted) but finding enough of the two dye lots so I can knit the back & sleeves from one, the fronts, bands & collar from the other. (Her tip: changes in dye lot won’t be so noticeable when there’s a seam between them.) I saved $20 on 1824 Wool in a greyed teal, beautiful shade, and I love this yarn.

So I cast on for Twist, and we’re past the waist shaping already. After all the knitting on US 2s & 3s, this feels like giant kindergarten knitting – and it goes so fast! I want to knit Ariann too (I bought three patterns – these two plus CeCe) so I’ll need some yarn for it. CeCe might be nice in a hot pink funky boucle yarn I’ve got in the stash. Ariann needs Cascade, so I’ll look around online.

 
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Tragedy

14 Feb

Last night I was knitting on Patti’s first sleeve, just about to the armscye decreases, when the unthinkable happened. Paul leaned on the bed, coincidentally on my new US5 Knitpicks Options needle, and it snapped. Not at the cable join, but at the base of the wooden needle tip. Grrr.

I didn’t have a handy US5, so I was forced to wind a ball of STR “Mustang Sally” and cast on for a new sock. Four times, mind you – because I didn’t have a pattern picked out yet, and this colorway definitely cries out for a lace or cable pattern. All shades of red, from tomato to maroon. Perfect Valentine knitting, eh?

Except that I’ve knit two pair – four socks – in the last week, and I was just starting to groove on the bigger gauge of Patti again. It’s so close to done – just 1.3 sleeves to go.

Fortunately, I found another US5 this morning, to get me through the weekend. It’s not really quite long enough, but we only have to bear that for 6 rows until the sleeve cap shaping. I’m doing short days at work all this week – I promise I’ll leave at 2 pm today, not 4 like yesterday, ouch – so we must have knitting to fill the afternoon!

And right now I’m going to place my order for the full Options set – probably in metal, not birch. I much prefer the feel of wooden circs, but the fragility scares me.

Happy Valentines Day to everyone! It’s not snowing here today (we had great pics of last year’s V-day snowstorm on the TV news this morning, I’d forgotten about that). We might even have some sunshine – a real reason to celebrate!

 
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Posted in Knitting

 

Tuesday morning

22 Jan

I’m not alone, it seems, in my awful mood: It’s going around. Not just depression, but anger and frustration. Ugly stuff, and I hate myself for it (yeah, that helps …) but there it is.

Half a sock on the needles, toe-up, Cable-and-Lace pattern. Did I mention these before? I don’t like short row heels, so I reworked the pattern for a reverse flap heel. Came out OK, but now I’m not loving the lace. I think I’ll frog it and start again, top-down, and just make up my own cables and lace pattern.

Work is changing again. I’ve given up the 5 am order processing, one of the guys comes in to do it now. I’ve hired an assistant to help with paperwork, etc., which makes me feel really weird – do I really need a secretary? But she’s great, and I think it’ll work out wonderfully.

Still, change is hard. So many changes in the last four months, I can hardly catch my breath. Here’s hoping the next few months bring us back to normality.

 
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Posted in Blather