As a result of my experience at Phoenix Rising (which was amazing but incredibly busy, as I was 75% of a two-woman AV team), I've agreed to take the plunge and staff Narrate's next Harry Potter conference. Terminus is being held next August 7-11, 2008 at the Hilton Hotel in Chicago, overlooking Grant Park and Lake Michigan. It promises everything we've come to expect from cons -- academic programming, Quidditch, and the chance to catch up with fellow fans -- and some cool new stuff, like a trivia contest and a webcast talk show about the ways HP has affected us all. I'm terribly excited about all of it -- visiting Chicago, catching up with people I'd missed at PR, and watching hundreds of fans interact. I got a little wibbly at the opening feast this last time.

To make Terminus the biggest and best HP conference yet, we're looking for some lovely volunteers to help promote at the upcoming film and book releases. We'll send you some pretty great swag -- postcards, luggage tags, stickers (and a cheat sheet with basic info) -- to pass out to fellow fans at whichever release party you choose to attend. If you're a bit shy like me, it's a great way to get talking with other people instead of sitting and looking around. If this sounds like something you'd be willing to do, drop a comment or shoot me an email at lauren.kent*at*terminus2008.org. We'll be eternally grateful.

(And while writing up this post, I decided that yarn pr0n will happen on Wednesday. *nods*)

Does anyone have experience with yardage meters like this one on Knitpicks? I'd love to have an easier way to count yardage and split balls in half than folding yarn back on itself. OTOH, if it's a total waste of money, I'd just as soon spend that $50 on actual yarn. :)

But I'm not really here to complain, because Alison's Charmed Knits, which may just be the coolest thing ever, came out this week. I think it's fabulous, and not just because some of my pieces are in it -- the patterns run the gamut from movie replicas to book-inspired stuff, and the book itself is gorgeous. (And I might've spent a bit of time at work flailing and showing it to coworkers who don't really care... but seeing your name in print is pretty awesome.)

Anyway, about to board now. I think I'll be at the knitting rendezvous at PR, so hopefully I can catch up with you guys then. If you see me, flag me down!

So, 'scuse my scarcity. Hopefully I won't lose too much data/sleep/sanity over this, but somehow I doubt it. Stupid Mercury retrograde.

(Work has been kicking my you-know-what again -- I had my first 15-hour day in ages last week. But I made my knitting deadline, at least. :D)

The Scotsman ran three pictures in their print edition this morning -- one of Harry fighting a dementor, one of Umbridge, McGonagall, Trelawney, and Filch, and one of Luna. You can see them in a slightly grainy scan here on HPANA, and the first two are also in clearer-but-smaller form on the Scotsman's online article. Umbridge is wearing a pink tweed poncho -- I'm guessing it's sewn, but I bet you could knit something similar in structure -- and Luna's got a great turquoise pullover. (I think I'm gonna love Luna's costumes, given that I dress like a color-blind twelve-year-old half the time anyway.)

Hopefully the big fansites will finagle high-res pics soon, and then we can really get started on the analysis.

• School Products, for a Lamb's Pride refill (um, and Koigu);
• The Point, who no longer stock Tahki Shannon;
• Purl Soho, where I managed not to buy anything silky, fuzzy, or tweedy, despite being sorely tempted;
• Knit NY, for stitch markers (can never have enough!) and buttery-yellow sale-bin DB Alpaca Silk (already 25% of the way to being a pair of Fetching wristwarmers;
• Downtown Yarns, for a skein of bright blue sportweight Frog Tree alpaca (the nascient project deserves a post all its own);
• and an intarwebby visit to Simply Knitting, for 50%-off Tahki Shannon (yessss!)

And then, I wrote a pattern. Just like that.

Of course, my real goal was not just to write the pattern, but also to test-knit the sizes (there's four, 'member?), do my photo shoot, and be writing my unveiling post right now. I was actually on track, too, and then a deadliney project popped back up (no, I can't say what it is; yes, you'll certainly find out eventually; and of course I'm evil, that's not news), so I switched over to that.

Oh, and I also shot more yarn porn! At this juncture, I'm fairly certain that yarn falls into the same category as baby animals, sunsets, and British rockstars: It just doesn't photograph badly.

animal cracker makings...

...and the resulting hat! this is actually the one I knit last summer, but the final pattern is the same. see how the Shannon yarn makes the top all variegated and jawesome?

yesterday's Koigu. the gold's not nearly so bright in person, and looked even less bright in the store. not complainin' -- I like bright!

Frog Tree alpaca in the foreground, DB Alpaca Silk in the background. I hadn't planned it, but what an alpaca-y picture.

this isn't new, but it is sexy. Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4ply, which had been earmarked for cabled socks for Jon. I don't think his new girlfriend would take too kindly to an ex knitting for him, so I have no idea what it'll be now.

Kaalund Classic Two, laceweight wool. would you be shocked to hear that I bought it in late winter? :) I think it might become the IK Icarus shawl, if it's not too busy to hide the border.

Vee! I'm a bit further now, and I'm getting a bit terrified of running out of yarn, even though the math says I should be fine.

see how smushy and wrinkly it is right off the needles...

...and how smooth and drapey it is after it's blocked? that's silk for you, I guess. we loves it!

haven't posted about this before, I don't think. this is most of my hipster hat, 2 skeins of Classic Elite Intrigue -- metallic cashmere! the yarn was a congrats-on-permanent-employment present to myself in March.

you can't actually tell, but it's a couple inches short of being done. I was mid-decrease, too, so it'll be a bitch to get back into. I love the way the waffliness shows off the metallic thread. actually I love it in general, I'll be picking my winter coat around it.

a heavily tweaked one skein wonder -- half-length sleeves, allover butterfly lace, and an attempt at a short-rowed shawl collar. I got bored before the collar was actually big enough to fold over, but I still like the fit. (a couple skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk, which had been bouncing around my stash for ages.)

and finally...

new shoes! I was actually looking for shoes suited to knitted socks, and wound up with so-ugly-they're-cute hipster shoes. (they'll still make a nice foil for anklewarmers, so I didn't absolutely fail my mission, riiiight?) my love knows no bounds.

okay, that's it. :)

(Aaaand commenting should be working here, now, so no need to link LJ! You'll need to be register for a Typekey account, if you don't already have one -- sorry for the fuss, but this is the only way I can find to stop myself from getting comment-spammed to death again.)

That's the sight I woke up to this morning. Since I'm consistently incapable of waking up early enough to block anything during the day, I decided I could bear, once in a while, to give up my bed to my ~*~one true love~*~ and spend the night on my aerobed. Sunday night saw Kiri sprawled out, and this morning it was Peacock.

Blocking lace is such a pain in the ass, but it's worth every minute spent hunched over your surface of choice, tugging and molding each YO into place. It hadn't really occurred to me, even while I was crocheting them, just how many points Peacock has, nor that I'd need to pin each one out to actually make it pointy. Didn't occur to me, either, that I might not have enough pins -- 'til all of a sudden my tin was empty, and I had another quarter of a shawl to pin out. I had to finish with sewing needles, and I can only hope that I got them all out of my bed. (eek!)

Sisyphean. That's what lace blocking is.

After I unpinned Peacock, I got out its big sisters and took a few pictures of my three painted ladies:

top to bottom: Kiri, Peacock, and Charlotte

I've yet to be happy with any Kiri pictures (nothing I've shot quite does justice to its sheen -- I still swear it must have some silk in it), but Charlotte proved a bit more photogenic.

Of all the design decisions I made on Charlotte, that's the one I love the best: I used my fourth shade (I've long since lost the band, but it's somewhere between sunset and rainbow -- deep shocking pinks and oranges merging into dusky blue and olive) to crochet around the whole thing, and the way it contrasts against the greens by the neck just kills me.

I brought all three shawls to our knitting circle at work (we're all official-like, we've even got a mailing list) because I was so chuffed over them. It seems maybe a little pompous to flit around with all this posh lacework when other people are just starting out, but it's, um, something to work towards, right? Right?

(Non-sequitur #1: Can you tell I got a new camera? Pretty much as a result of the Franz tour -- in the course of taking a thousand-plus pictures in one week, I realized how much my old camera was holding me back. The new one is a Nikon D70, and I fall back in love with it every time I feel the shutter recoil in my hand. Yay for DSLRs.)

(Non-sequitur #2: It occurs to me that, until I get commenting working on the blog proper, the LJ feed will accept comments. I'll try to remember to link to each entry once it propagates.)

comment here!

Um, oops?

I haven't got a really good excuse for that. Closest I have is work; I went permanent (I was temp-to-perm, remember?) in March, and just as I'd expected, as soon as I stopped having to fill out a timesheet, I started working crazy hours. 50 hour weeks have become the norm for me, and I've gone as high as 70. It's downright silly. But I still really like what I'm doing, and I'm working on a couple interesting long-term projects, and they trust me enough to send me on trips to other offices (my department supports 7 of them -- so far I've been to Bethesda, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley (Cupertino, if we're being precise)), so really I can't complain.

I've done some typically crazy things on my off time. In April, I took a week off and followed Franz Ferdinand on tour around the northeast, which was time-of-my-life amazing. (I took piles of pictures; they're here, and they'll also be in the Franz fan club magazine, which will be my first photo credit!) I also took shorter trips to Boston and Philly to see the Futureheads, and I took a day off to see San Francisco when I was there for work. I went to New Orleans on Memorial Day weekend for a site visit with the ladies of Phoenix Rising.

Umm... what else. I got my wisdom teeth out last month, which wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected. (I'd set aside the recuperation time for finally putting the fringe on my Charlotte, and I forced myself to do it anyway even though I was well enough to go out.) I'm probably moving again in the not-too-distant future, hopefully within a stone's throw of where I am now, hopefully with the lovely Marilyn. I'm still (nearly) as single as can be. And concerts, I've got concerts.

And I've got much too little knitting to show for the past ten months. For weeks at a time, my only knitting opportunity was during my commute. I worked exclusively on my Peacock Feather shawl (I scrapped the blue alpaca, went for hot pink Zephyr instead :)) from June 'til September, working a half-row by rote every morning. I made a pair of springy, crocus-colored Badcaul socks, which now reside with my mother. I finished a red bulky "green" cabled cardigan just after the transit strike in December. My Kiri is finally blocking (and it's a good thing I stopped when I did, because it's exactly the size of my full-size bed). My new favoritest project is the Vee pullover I'm making in gorgeous green tussah silk -- Artfibers Golden Chai that I got as my San Fran souvenir. ;) I've got an eye for the short-sleeved Honorine from the new Magknits, too.

I'm finally excited about knitting again. It's a great feeling.

(One other note -- comments are essentially turned off right now. I'm gonna use an authentication service to prevent myself from getting spammed with thousands of junk comments like before, but it's not working yet. If anybody's got any tips on getting Typekey working, please shoot me an email!)

...new apartment!!!

I didn't really want to move when I did (which was three weeks ago) but in retrospect I'm so glad I did, and I LOVE my new apartment. I'm in a 2-bedroom share in this funky doorman building on the Lower East Side. It's pretty much my dream apartment, and it's in my price range and everything! My fingers are crossed that I'll become permanent at work (which is going really well still -- we hired three new temps, so once they're trained, my workload should come down) by the time my roommate's lease is up, so that I can take it over. I have a ~10'x6' window that runs the length of my room, so I have plennnty of light if I want it (and pretty purple and gold curtains when I don't). AND I'm right around the corner from Downtown Yarns -- not necessarily a good thing, because it means I wind up dropping $50 on two skeins of Kaalund Expressions in Pacific when I run out "for pizza." But for all the OT I've been doing, I think I deserve a treat!

Knittingwise... the Kaalund is becoming my new Kiri, which is a much happier excursion than the (frogged) previous effort. The Alpaca Cloud from that is earmarked for the Peacock Feathers Shawl (though I may exchange for a new color -- I'm understandably sick of that shade of blue now :p). And in between, Ivete talked me into knitting a green-to-pink Charlotte's Web (it was inevitable!), which will be done as soon as I pick up a second skein of each of my last two colors. Stash reduction? What?

I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't seen GoF since it was actually released, but I did manage to see it twice before that :D -- one media screening and the NY premiere (after covering the red carpet for FictionAlley). I loooooved it, cried over the same part everyone else did, and I definitely must see it again. I have tons of knitting notes filed away in my head (house unity scarf! new Weasley sweater! twinhat! Ginny's woobie orange hat!) but 6am is not the time to get into that.

Since I've had a few emails, the animal cracker hat pattern is on hold until I'm actually out of work early enough to go to School Products to restock the Lamb's Pride that I used up at TWH. I can't even remember the last time I left early enough to be done yarnshopping at 6! sigh.

okay... back to bed for me.

Happily I've managed to recover as far as sleep goes; the concerts were wonderful (the last one culminated in a kiss on the cheek from Franz's woobie guitarist); and I've reason to believe that my job will turn permanent in the not-too-distant future. But in the midst of all that, I completely lost track of my knitting, and that's simply no good.

I've been plodding along on Kiri everyday during my commute. She's about 15" along the center back, I'd guess, but my god, is it boring now. I reeeeally need something else to work on -- I think that's the problem, this lack of variety -- but I've been so busy/tired that I haven't had a moment to find something to inspire me. This is Bad.

So, here's what I'm gonna ask. Link me to something awesome. A project of yours, someone else's, a pattern you saw, a picture, anything. It's freezing in New York now and I desperately need new sweaters, and I can actually afford yarn again (yay!). I want to make something incredible, but on my own, I'm coming up short.

I'll recap TWH next time -- I've got a smattering of pictures, and unless you were there, you seriously won't believe how much the animal cracker hat went for in the auction.

And naturally, the first thing I did this morning? Scouted out the LYS here, Arabella Yarns. :D It's actually really close to the Salem Waterfront Hotel, where we're staying -- it's part of Pickering Wharf, which is immediately behind the hotel. They've got a decent selection of DK and larger yarns, including several nice Hatmione candidates and exactly the right blue Lambs Pride I was hoping they'd have. At some point (tomorrow or Monday I guess) I want to hit some yarn shops in Boston, because hi, nice yarn == souvenir. ;)

And why did I want blue Lambs Pride, you say? Because I made an animal cracker hat on impulse last night to wear this weekend, and I need blue for the braids. It's supercute and awesome and stays on just fine. whee.

So, everybody who's headed here this weekend -- if you see me, say hi! I'll probably wear a punky Gryff uniform on Friday, Ravenclaw Quidditch on Sunday, not sure about the other days. Look for the needles. ;)

(job rocks, btw. I pretty much love it to pieces. Nobody even batted an eye when I asked for a week off for TWH. Soon the company network will be flooded with HP-themed computer names, Hermione being the first one.)

The weather has finally cooled off in New York. I love the fall, because it means I can show off socks and scarves and sweaters. I've spent the weekend in sweatpants and sweaters and it's making me so happy. Hopefully the cold will stick, because I think everyone's gotten over the Indian summer we've been having.

I started Kiri last night, and so far it's coming along swimmingly. I'm working on US3 needles, which might be a bit small now that I'm a couple repeats into it, but I'm okay with a slightly denser shawl. I think it'd go faster if I didn't stretch out the work after every WS row to admire it, if only because my tension is pretty tight right now and the join on my needles (Crystal Palace bamboo) isn't too agreeable with laceweight.

The Katrina Hermione hat is close to decreasing -- it's been my carryalong project recently since I'm out of yarn on my current String project (a chunky cabled cardigan in their private-label cashmere, wah wah). I keep dragging my heels on the sweater for my landlady -- she has six 100g balls with no marked yardage. Assuming they're similar to Blue Sky Alpacas' sportweight, it's about 220 yards/100 grams, so I'm looking at 1320 yards, which seems like it's cutting it close for a heavily-cabled sweater. Basically I need to sit down and do the math, but wah, lazy.

Anyway, this is just me padding out a RL entry with knitting talk. Someone nag me about updating the GoF reference page! There's so much now that it's a bit intimidating.

But now Jany's one-upped herself, because Fred and George's offwhite-and-blue hat from PoA is set to make an appearance at the Quidditch World Cup. Not only does that make me all sorts of happy as a geek in general, it ought to light a fire under my knitterly butt about finishing off (or, really, getting started on) the pattern for it. If the animal cracker hat turns up too, I give you all permission to prod me daily, because I'm sorta stalled out as it stands now.

(Also, plz to nag me about sending my camera for repair. I've got the funds -- about $200 -- set aside, I've just been too lazy to go get it packed and sent. I feel like a very bad person.)

Speaking of stalling out... apparently all I needed to do with the vest for String was bitch about it a bit, because I cast on the front on Saturday and finished it this afternoon. The ladies really like it, so I'm happy. I get my next project tomorrow or the day after, although I ought to start knocking out the super-cabley turtleneck my landlady wants. (She's got all this sportweight alpaca she bought in Bolivia and insists on paying me -- don't gotta tell me twice!)

The rest of this post will be spent replying to comments on the last few entries, so if you think it's awfully conceited when bloggers do this, you might as well scroll...

Laurence directed me to her free Kiri shawl pattern, which is currently duking it out with Peacock for the right to come into existence. I think Kiri may win, and not only because I shouldn't be spending $9.50 on a pattern right now. I think Peacock deserves to be done in some opulent variegated hair-of-some-sort/silk blend. I'm trying to be responsible for now, but I'm sure I'll be casting on in no time, because me? willpower? nuh uh.

Suzanne says that Alpaca Cloud is thicker(?!) than most laceweights, which makes me quake visibly in my flipflops. I'm sensing this is a very slippery slope, and one I'm likely to wind up at the bottom of in no time.

Knittingnurse asks which shade of Alpaca Cloud I got, and the answer is Stream. It took a lot of effort not to go with a shade of green, but I'm pleased with my choice. And as far as the Flirty Ruffles shawl goes, the ruffle is exactly the part that I like. I have 1760 yards of yarn, so I may just tack a ruffle onto whatever I make. For a girl who wears predominantly t-shirts and jeans, I sure do like my girly things.

And last but certainly not least, Karen encouraged me on the job front, which is muchly appreciated, because I've felt a bit woe-is-me the last few days. I have two interviews with temp agencies tomorrow (which doesn't quite explain why I'm up now blogging instead of sleeping) and an appointment about a permanent position on Wednesday, so fingers crossed. I know these things take time, but dammit, I need a job yesterday!