Friday, June 03, 2005

unlimited... knitting!

Busy? No, I haven't been busy at all. Why would I be busy? It's not as though I lived on the sidewalk outside the Ziegfeld Theatre for nineteen days, or spent entirely too much money seeing Revenge of the Sith (which, for the record, I adore), or have since been engrossed in a myriad of real-life issues. No, not in the slightest.

The good thing about the Star Wars line, at least, is that it means lots of knitting time. I finished Cleaves by the third day, five days after I cast on, and I love it. I need to rip out the bind-off and extend the collar a few inches - I bound off early because I was cold and wanted to wear it - but the color is great, the sleeves are nice and long, and it's so cool. The weather hasn't quite been right for it, either too warm or too cold, but I'm looking forward to bringing it to summer concerts to combat venue air conditioning.

Scarves... since I last posted, I've knitted, uh, five or six, I think? I've lost count. Of course, I haven't washed or fringed any of them, so there's a rather intimidating stripey pile on the sofa. Most of them are wool, too, which means handwashing. ughers! I really need to update my scarf pages so people stop emailing me. From here on out, I'm only scarfing for people I know, when I feel like scarfing, and using yarn (namely, Patons Classic Wool - cheapish and the colors are decent) that I can get locally. I'm done with the overachieving.

I also made quite a bit of progress on my Quidditch socks - finally! The first sock is up past the first of two stripes (which I started too early, but whatever) around my calf, so it shouldn't be too much longer now. Once it's finished, I'll do a photo shoot with my sock and Adrienne's and maybe, finally, get the pattern up. Who knows, maybe I'll even show some initiative and finish the second sock for the book release, since a whole new costume is out of the question.

Okay, maybe not.

Cute pictures (1, 2) of Amit and me modeling my Hurry Up Spring wristwarmers during the line. I don't think I ever took proper FO shots of them, so there ya go. I had to re-knit the thumb on the right warmer because it's worn through already (I guess this is a SW line tradition, because in '02 the thumb castoff on my right fingerless glove came undone), and the thumb crotch on both warmers looks to be the next to go. Suck.

Lauren posted at 9.03 on 06.03.05 comments (0)

Thursday, April 28, 2005

I am less than intelligent sometimes.

Two months after I migrated my fandom domains (there are five of them now - how terrifying is that!) to a new webhost, I finally figured out why Movable Type had stopped letting me update. I refuse to admit publicly exactly what I was doing wrong, but suffice it to say that it was an excruciatingly stupid mistake, and after three years of collegiate computer science training at a fairly prestigious university, I'm pretty embarrassed not to have thought of it sooner.

Anyway!

The good news is, I'm back in the knitblogging world. The not so good news is that I haven't had much to report - the never-ending procession of Hogwarts scarves continues, and until today, the only knitting I'd done for myself was a few rounds on my Quidditch socks.

Today, though, I decided to reward myself (I'd just gotten out of an actual productive meeting with my head of advisement) with a wee yarn purchase, made possible by my federal tax refund, which turned up last week. I stopped by Downtown Yarns and bought six skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky in lovely deep purple aubergine to make Cleaves, from the spring Knitty. Turns out I only needed five, but hey, whatever.

I stopped back home, then headed to Lord & Taylor, of all places, for the Yarn Harlot's book talk. Naturally I got all sorts of confused in the elevator, and wound up ten minutes later finally in the right car with two very nice ladies, Joanna and Loretta. We were served sparkling water, white wine, and fancy hors d'ouvres(!) in the half-hour or so before Stephanie took the stage; I helped Joanna join a two-circulars sock and was spotted by no less than three people for knitting a HP scarf (the current one is an SS/CoS Gryffindor, so it's to be expected) before I decided to swatch and start the first sleeve of Cleaves.

Stephanie, of course, was pee-your-pants hilarious in person, just like her blog. She read from her book and took questions from the audience, about 45 minutes in all. It was fantastic to sit in a room of women (and a few men) at least as dedicated to knitting as I, especially after feeling for several months like I'd lost touch with the knitter in me. No worries - she's still there, just been preempted by real-life nonsense.

So... hopefully there'll be more out of me in the coming weeks, whether it's fandom knitting or not. At the very least, I should be able to speed through these last scarves during the NYC Star Wars line-a-thon... and the many, many movie viewings that will follow it. ;)

Lauren posted at 21.16 on 04.28.05 comments (0)

I am less than intelligent sometimes.

Two months after I migrated my fandom domains (there are five of them now - how terrifying is that!) to a new webhost, I finally figured out why Movable Type had stopped letting me update. I refuse to admit publicly exactly what I was doing wrong, but suffice it to say that it was an excruciatingly stupid mistake, and after three years of collegiate computer science training at a fairly prestigious university, I'm pretty embarrassed not to have thought of it sooner.

Anyway!

The good news is, I'm back in the knitblogging world. The not so good news is that I haven't had much to report - the never-ending procession of Hogwarts scarves continues, and until today, the only knitting I'd done for myself was a few rounds on my Quidditch socks.

Today, though, I decided to reward myself (I'd just gotten out of an actual productive meeting with my head of advisement) with a wee yarn purchase, made possible by my federal tax refund, which turned up last week. I stopped by Downtown Yarns and bought six skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky in lovely deep purple aubergine to make Cleaves, from the spring Knitty. Turns out I only needed five, but hey, whatever.

I stopped back home, then headed to Lord & Taylor, of all places, for the Yarn Harlot's book talk. Naturally I got all sorts of confused in the elevator, and wound up ten minutes later finally in the right car with two very nice ladies, Joanna and Loretta. We were served sparkling water, white wine, and fancy hors d'ouvres(!) in the half-hour or so before Stephanie took the stage; I helped Joanna join a two-circulars sock and was spotted by no less than three people for knitting a HP scarf (the current one is an SS/CoS Gryffindor, so it's to be expected) before I decided to swatch and start the first sleeve of Cleaves.

Stephanie, of course, was pee-your-pants hilarious in person, just like her blog. She read from her book and took questions from the audience, about 45 minutes in all. It was fantastic to sit in a room of women (and a few men) at least as dedicated to knitting as I, especially after feeling for several months like I'd lost touch with the knitter in me. No worries - she's still there, just been preempted by real-life nonsense.

So... hopefully there'll be more out of me in the coming weeks, whether it's fandom knitting or not. At the very least, I should be able to speed through these last scarves during the NYC Star Wars line-a-thon... and the many, many movie viewings that will follow it. ;)

Lauren posted at 21.16 on 04.28.05 comments (0)