Sea Anemone Knits

I tried to get onto my lil blog this afternoon and encountered chaos and unhappy website gobbledygook.

My blog had broken…super sad day!

So I emailed Dreamhost’s tech support and sobbed at them.

A little bit later, I hear my email go off and I have this:

Hi Amy,

It looks like there was a problem with your WP_CACHE. I added a comment
to it:

computer speak stuff

and it works fine now. Nice work btw, you do have good hands. Please let
me know if you have any more questions. Happy blogging!

Thanks!
Travis

YAY for Travis! Fixer of blogs! I really ought to knit him some socks.

I have gotten faster too! Remember these?? I started them on my flight to Monterey CA to see whales. (And whales I saw!!) And I finished them earlier this week.

They’re a wee bit too long in the foot, but, they’ll be good for surfing across wooden floors at home.

Speaking of which, I’m moving tomorrow. Bye Houston… ::sniff!:: I’m sad to be leaving, but I love Galveston just as much, and it’s still close by.

The Bug-boy is already down there. Has been all week. He’s mad at me for not letting him be here with me, but it’s easier this way. Plus, if he wasn’t mad at me, I couldn’t get adorable pictures like this:

Also, this a week or so ago, I found the perfect yarn to knit my best friend, Meryl, a shawl. She’s a teacher and has spent the last couple of years teaching in S. Korea and plans on spending some more time teaching in other countries before she returns home to teach stateside. And it can get cold in classrooms regardless of what country you’re in.

So I wrote to Susie who is the woman behind Perchance to Knit to see if she had a smaller skein of the perfect color because, frankly, I’m broke and I can’t really afford a full skein. Susie wrote me back and was so very lovely. She had a smaller skein that if I wanted it, she’d be happy to sell me. And I said yes! It was the perfect yardage and I could afford it and birds sang in trees. That sort of thing.

So about a week or so later (I was out of town for a weekend, it could have arrived faster for all I know) I get a package in my mail box and I am good, I took it upstairs with my groceries and unloaded the groceries and did my chores and when I was done, I opened my squishy parcel.

Inside was the magical skein of yarn that was perfect for Meryl (I can’t do the yarn justice. It really is worlds prettier than this picture says.)

Then, another skein of yarn popped out. And y’all, just in case you weren’t already aware, Susie is the sweetest woman on the face of the planet.

She sent me a skein of sock yarn with very explicit instructions to knit something for myself. And I plan to. Oh yes. I’ve been scouring Ravelry for patterns. Mmmm, more squishy socks. I love rainbows. Thank you Susie! It was quite the day brightener and I very much appreciate it! Warm fuzzies all around!!

I have started and erased a post multiple times over the last week. I don’t know why other than to say that over the past few weeks or so, I haven’t felt like I had anything really worth saying. I kind of still don’t really know what to write about.

I could tell y’all about my progress on the Shetland Triangle that I’ve been working on… Surprised? So am I. I don’t think I’ve said anything about it. (If I’m wrong, please don’t worry about correcting me. I’m feeling too blah to care right now.) I’m starting the edging just as soon as I click “publish” and I haven’t even taken pictures of it yet.

I could tell y’all about my frustration with a sweater that I’ve been designing and how the stitch pattern I chose is not looking anything like what I chose despite following the instructions very carefully. (I do have a picture for you for that one.)

I could tell y’all about how I spent a lovely weekend this past weekend with my friends Anne, PlumTexan, Liz and Kelly as well as my impromptu trip to Galveston to see my Mom, Papa, brothers and Mom’s boyfriend.

But when we get right down to it, I’ve just not been feeling like joining the outside world (much less the innernets) lately. Regardless of the fun I’ve had with everyone (and trust me, y’all truly have no idea how much I’ve needed it) the fact of the matter is that I’m depressed. It’s been in “remission” so to speak for quite a while. And that was good. But it hasn’t helped that I’m not on my meds right now (Please, don’t bother to chide me. I know. Ok?) and that I’m feeling kind of stuck in a dead end job and frustrated with my lack of completed edumacation and familial stresses that cannot be helped nearly as much as I wish that I could. It’s really been quite overwhelming and even my job performance has suffered. I hate that I’ve let it work it’s way into the workplace because I’ve tried very hard to keep it out because trust me, I do not need another year end review in which I leave in tears.

And honestly, I could tell y’all a lot more about the depression but really, what is there to say. It happens and there’s not much I feel I can do about it right now besides ride it out and hope that the sun shines again soon. Surprisingly, a lot of the common signs have not been apparent with this round of it. My house is still clean. I am still showered. (Just kidding! Depressed or not, I’ve never not bathed. (double negative anyone?)) I’m eating healthily and losing weight (Which is planned. Thanks Weight Watchers!)

Just in case anyone wanted a photographic representation to better interpret how I’ve been feeling:

I don’t know guys. I just feel all cattywhompus. My best friend is on the other side of the world and after I spend a week with her in August, she goes back for another year. (This is so cliche, but I have to say it) I’m still single. I live by myself. And thusly, I am my own best friend a lot of the time. I’m not feeling all that great about the state of the world today. Want me to stop yet? Yeah. Don’t worry, I don’t feel like expounding any more tonight.

I’ll leave you with pictures of my current trusty companions who don’t care if I spend all evening after I get home from work in ratty sweats and a t-shirt.

(Note that even though you see that sock, it really hasn’t had more than two rows added to it in months. Apparently even just holding it on my lap like I’m going to knit it is enough…)

All in all, I’m sick of feeling like shit folks.

I could tell you about my progress on the Swallowtail Part Deux, but really, there’s no point in showing you photos of the shawl looking the same as it did a few days ago. It’s grown. I’m not saying it hasn’t. I’ve got one row left before I start the three edge charts and then it’s time to block it! and block it good! (sorry, got a little carried away there!)

Saturday found me making a quick trip over to High Fashion Fabrics with Meredith where I picked up a dress pattern and some contrast fabric for the loteria fabric I picked up last week. I also stumbled across this fabric which I’m fighting the urge to go back and get!

I bought this pattern:

I bought the pattern so I could sew the green dress pictured there. I’ve done a little digging around the internets and found a website that has a very pretty merlot colored jersey fabric that I want to use for it. Their fabric is like half the price of jersey that I’ve fondled seen at fabric stores here in town. So I may be placing an order with them sometime soon. If I do, I’m thinking about also buying a dress amount of the jersey in a nice grey color that I saw as well. I do want to change the straps though. I’m going to eliminate those pesky bowtie straps and make the straps slightly wider and of the variety that do not tie. Now to get over my fear of zippers…

Tonight, I got up close and personal with my sewing machine again for the second time in the last couple of weeks.

It’s not tall enough to hold straight needles, but it’ll hold a coupld of circulars and some sets of both short and long dpns. I wish I’d had some interfacing to make it feel a little sturdier, but really, this is one of the better sewing jobs I’ve done. I even pressed the fabric as I went to keep it all nice and neat. Going out on a limb here, but I say that the pressing as you go thing was an insanely brilliant not a bad idea.

I also finished my Gardenia Leaves footies a few weeks ago. The bind-off is a bit snug, but really, since I don’t get to wear socks really anywhere but at home and on the weekends, I’m ok with the snug bind off. I won’t have to tug the socks up! I got the yarn from The Fiber Denn. I’ve bought yarn from her before and I’ve always been impressed with the lovely softness of the yarn as well as the freakin COLORS. Hello perfect fat stripes much?? Currently until the 15th of May, she’ll donate a hefty portion of the proceeds from the sale of certain of her yarns to her local pug rescue and I think that that is pretty cool. You can check out better details here.

I’m just way too glad to have them done. The plain stockinette sucked my soul was a little bit boring.

For having been off for a week, it feels like it passed in the blink of an eye.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I was surrounded by family and I will do them all a favor by not posting photos. Mainly because almost every one of my photos seems to have someone stuffing their face and thus doing their best impersonation of a chipmunk. I did not plan this. But that cheese table was to die for…so I can’t blame them.

(no, really, thank me later!)

It was, surprisingly, a really nice day. I was extremely worried about a phenomenon known as a "Catered Thanksgiving" It was out of the norm, strange and frankly, I don’t like change. It was really good food. It didn’t taste catered at all and because of that, I can ignore that I plucked my food out of big silvery aluminum serving trays. Even the cranberry sauce was actual cranberries with orange zest for flavor instead of the horror I’d been imagining (read: canned cranberry jelled goo)

The next day was one I was also dreading. I’ve done nothing but stress and worry about this week of vacation and this was the biggest reason I was doing so. We buried my Grandfather. The service was really nice and there were a lot of people there. At one point, my Papa stood up and spoke about his father and read something aloud that he’d found that floored me.

Go read this. I’ll wait. No really, read it.

(Some pictures to amuse me while I wait for you to read the link.)

I will, of course, assume that you have humored me and gone to read the link.

This woman went to the estate sale that was hosted at my Grandfather’s house. She is a librarian and wrote a blog post about my grandfather and some clippings she found from my Grandmother’s brother Charlie’s wedding to Marnie back in the 1940’s.

I’ve emailed with her a few times and she is sending the clipping back to me so that I may forward it to my cousin "Little" Marnie, Big Marnie’s granddaughter. She lives in the Heights and I am touched that someone would think so highly of my Grandfather after only seeing his book collection and never actually knowing him. It really floored the family I think to hear my Papa read her blog post at the memorial.

Later that afternoon, we took his ashes out to the old Yellow Fever Cemetary in Brenham where my Grandmother and some family from the 1800’s are buried. (Side Note: We had some family from my Grandmother’s side move out to Brenham in the 1800’s. They all promptly contracted and died of Yellow Fever (good move!). Except one. She was sent back to W. Virginia and grew up to produce more family members that eventually produced my Grandmother. yay!)

We have buried him next to my Grandmother and will have a headstone out to replace the, um, stick very soon.

We left him with some Tabasco sauce in keeping with our having left my Grandmother with a bottle of her favorite beer, Red Seal Ale. (This ale is one of the brews from her brother Tom’s company, North Coast Brewing Co. Its good stuff.)

I did get some knitting done this week as well.

Check out the progress on the Hourglass.

What? You say the neckline looks a little different? Oh! You want a closeup??

Yep. Folks, I am home free now. I’ve done the turning row and just have to finish the facing and sew it down. I am so wearing this before the month is up!

I also started these on Thanksgiving day as we were driving to Brenham.

My feet approve of them so far.

(Yes, Mo, I’m magic looping two socks at the same time. I got over my incapability to comprehend the technique)

And because I’m feeling particularly Southern today, I shall leave you with this explanation of us Southern Folk.

I am soo dead. I got my Socks of Death in the mail yesterday from my Assassin. My assassin who happens to be one of the sweetest knitters ever and I feel like an awful schmuck about the um, sock I’m about to send her. Kind of. See, I’m a pretty slow knitter and well, I’m almost at the heel on the socks I was knitting for my Target. They’re toe up socks.

Katrina, I mean, return postage?? You must have been hiding in my car and seeing me continually show up at the postoffice 5 minutes after they close, like every time I go. Making it to the postoffice means taking off work early. You were spost to kill me with socks, not kindness. Dang. Wow.

More post later and with pictures but I needed to announce really quickly that I am officially dead and OUT of the Sock Wars.

Katrina, the box is going into the mail to you today. I hope I’m not too late!

"(Remarking about his drink while onstage) Look at all the limes in this god-damn thing! This fuckin’ thing is tropical! Look at the limes, how they float. That’s good news man. Next time I’m on a boat and it capsizes, I’ll reach for a lime… I’ll be water skiing without a life preserver and people’ll say ‘What the hell?’ and I’ll pull out a lime…and a lemon too. I’m saved by the buoyancy of citrus." - M. Hedberg

I’ve been listening to a lot of Mitch Hedberg lately. I like that joke above all of his others that I’ve heard. I laugh like an idiot every time I hear it.

So, I’ve been housesitting and updating was a major ordeal that I just was too tired to do. Sorry!

I went to Galveston for part of my labor day weekend. I grew up in Galveston and I’m proud to present to you an exceptionally pretty view:

Ain’t she purty folks?? I got to enjoy this view at lunch with my Mom!

(In case she’s reading, Hi Mom!! I put up the picture you liked!!)

I got lots of knitting done while I was incognito. It’s a LOT of stockinette. For some reason, I’ll get bored with a stockinette project and cast on a new one that is also 90% stockinette. What the heck is wrong with me?? I worked some more on the Hourglass & I’m about 3/4 done. The rest of a sleeve and a yoke to do. Go me!

But wait! There’s more! Do you remember back when I went to NJ a couple months ago? I started the Silk Camisole from LMKG? Then when I got home, I frogged the bejeezus out of it? Yeah, so do I. I hated ripping that out. Well, good news. I restarted it over the long weekend. I’m about 5 inches in. I didn’t screw up the lace too badly and I’m surprisingly ok with the few screw ups and am not about to rip back and try to fix anything. Screw it!

I figure that I won’t get to wear it this season and so soon, I’ll put it down for a bit in favor of attempting my Mom’s cardigan again. Lace and mohair is such a bad idea. Really. Ugh. But, I told her I’d do it so I’d best just cast on and get to it while we’re young, right? Please, I need encouragement! I’ll have never knit this much lace. It’s intimidating.

I finished some footlets while I was gone. There’s not much to em. I got the yarn (Alexandrite colourway. It self striped!) from The Fiber Denn on etsy.com. Delia is very sweet, everyone, go buy yarn from her. I used KP Options US 4 needles to Magic Loop ‘em. Simple magic cast-on toe, short row heel, and blah, there you are.

And with that, I bid you adieu! I need to get some sleep tonight. Especially since the cat woke my sleepy toucas up at 4am and I proceeded to just lay there.

So Thursday, before I left the office, I called Cafe Express. I just wanted to know if we could expect to get shafted and kicked out of our room again. I mean, hey, we HAVE been meeting up back there for more than two years you know? We kinda have dibs on that back room. So they put me on with Del. He’s the General Manager there. Really nice guy. He gets on the phone and is very interested in accomodating the group and wants to know if we’d like them to reserve the room for us. I’m all like, no, you dont have to reserve the room, i just wanted to know if anyone else had. We talk another minute and get off the phone.

I get to CE that evening. They’ve pushed a bunch of table together along the back wall bench and slapped a reserved sign on them. I immediately know that this is for us. So I sit down to knit and wait for other knitters to show up. Del comes over and introduces himself. We talk a bit and he’s very interested in what I’m doing and in the group, etc. Then, he informs me that he’s put two bottles of wine on ice for the group, on the house. I’m floored. So we had a lovely smooth Pinot Grigio at the group this past Thursday. How lovely is that? I’m always so thrilled to experience the niceness of people. It makes you feel very welcome.

Saturday afternoon, I went and saw A Prairie Home Companion with my Papa and Annie (his girlfriend). It was really good. I love Garrison Keillor. I’ve been listening to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio since I was a little girl. It was constant background noise at my grandparents house, and always on the car radio when we drove anywhere in the evenings. That, for me, is part of what home means. The movie does not disappoint. Except for names like Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, John C Reilly, Lindsey Lohan, etc… all of the people are people who actually work on the radio show. So the sound was authentic PHC. It was so cool. Afterwards, we went and had dinner at the Black Lab. It’s on Montrose and is an English restaurant. Right down to the strange English meals. For dessert, they really will serve you something called Spotted Dick. SD is some kind of pudding dotted with cinnamon, raisins and currants. What an unfortunate name for something that is probably really good.

Later, I went out with Susan to Pappadeux’s where I sat and worked on the koigu Mom sock and she had dinner. The waiter was hot. And flirting with me. I’m still feeling saucy with this haircut. Tis a goood thing. We finished there and went to grab Jet to go see a movie called Little Miss Sunshine. Its about a dysfunctional family and how with as much as they fight and squabble amongst themselves, when outside forces come to pick fights with them, they all pull together. Its a sappy idea for a movie, but we saw it at the River Oaks theater (the one slated to be closed down! find a petition, sign it!) and it was a tiny movie room with a tiny, packed audience and we all laughed really really hard pretty much continuously. Then, after the movie, the three of us started laughing our asses off in the bathroom at Lord only knows what and practically had to gasp for breath we were laughing so hard. I don’t know what we were laughing at, but really, I don’t think it mattered. We had fun with it.

We also attracted some attention for having our knitting at the movie. This chick sitting in front of Susan was enthralled and wanted to know if we could teach her. Sure! So we told her when and where we have meetings and to come on by. Hopefully we see her. She seemed like she’d fit in nicely with the group.

And because y’all have been so patient with the non-knitting posting lately, I thought y’all might enjoy this:

Doggy Raincoats!!

The blog says "hello!"

hehe! My first blog and blog post! Yay! It seems to me that more and more, every knitter I know has a blog. Like its a prerequisite for knitting. I can see it now… you walk into a stark white room with a desk and a chair on either side. A very serious looking man in a white lab coat is sitting in one chair with a pen and a clipboard. You sit down. "SO, you want to be a knitter?" Do you have a BLOG?"

Part of the reason I am starting this is because I really want to join one of these secret pal thingers. You sign up to have a knit-y secret pal and you get to send them little anonymous presents in the mail and hopefully you get sent little anonymous presents in the mail. At the end, you get to find out who your buddy is and it’s all sorts of fun. Apparently, you have to have a blog that you update in weekly. I can understand this. It gives your buddy a way to find out about you so they can try and pick stuff that you might actually like. It would bite to do this and your favorite color is purple and you detest red and your secret pal, being none the wiser because of no blog, sends you a skein of red yarn. Suck-fest.

If I ever get to join one of these, just so there are no questionings, you can’t go wrong with jewel tone teals and amethysts and greens. Cool jewel tones are never wrong for me. Just a by the way, you understand. *grin*

I think that I need to invest in a digital camera here pretty soon. That way I can post photos. I mean, what good is a knitting themed blog if all you ever get are these lame ramblings and no actual pictures of what I’m working on. I ought to mention that I’m working on a few things right now…That would be good. Don’t you think?

Things I’m working on…A bunch actually when I really start thinking about it. I’d best just make a list. I like lists…

Somewhat Cowl (Knit and Tonic): I’m using Cotton Fleece in Perry’s Primrose. I cast on on the 27th of April. It’s been going really quickly. I’m already working on waist decreasing. It’s been a little problematic. I’ve adjusted practically every measurment to accomodate some flaw in the sizing according to the pattern. It’s been pretty frustrating. Why publish and sell a pattern if you can’t even take the time to test knit every size you offer and make sure that it all works out properly. All in all, I’m happy with my results (according to my adjustments) thus far.

Letter Have It: I’m knitting this one with Lamb’s Pride Worsted. The colors are Limeade with Brite Blue for the trim. I’m not knitting a leeter into the bag. It’s a gift and I"m pretty darned sure they would not appreciate the letter on the side. I’m considering however, needle-felting a pretty little leaf into the side. Not sure yet though. I need to knit the i-cord and sew it all together and felt it.

Clapotis: I’m using Noro Kureyon to knit this one. I’m almost ready to start increasing on one side and decreasing on the other. I kinda put this one down to work on the Somewhat Cowl. I will finish it though…

Mama’s Socks: I’m currently working on the feet. I’ve got the toes done. I’m frustrated with these socks because I’ve never knit a pair of socks on the same needle before and it’s confusing to keep having to untangle the yarn. Foof. As soon as I get enough length on the feet to be able to stick the balls of yarn inside the socks and knit them that way, I’ll be able to actually work on them without getting so cranky that I put them down after a round or two.

Well, I think that’s it for the time being. I’ll post about the yarn swap party I went to later. I need to go filch some pictures from the other gals who went. Yay!