Resonance

Taste the happy!

2008-04-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

Lookit--I knit a cardigan! It was a small project, the cropped cardigan with leaf ties from last year's spring Knitty, but I'm still pretty happy with my ability to create a garment that I can wear in public without embarrassment. I made a few modifications, most notably to decrease the depth of the scoopneck and increase the length of the cardi, which I think generally make it less trendy but probably something that I'd wear more than once...The only thing that confuses me is that despite doing a slip-stitch edge and blocking like crazy, I still have rolly stockinette edges. Oh, well.

Right now, I'm working on Hanami, which is an absolutely gorgeous stole pattern, using the
luxurious Sea Silk that I bought some time ago. So shiny...and it knits up really nicely, with a lovely sheen. I have a few more skeins in the stash which I think will work really well for the other shawls I have planned for the future. I'm thinking my next project will either be fair isle mittens, or maybe the Sunrise Circle Jacket (pdf)...depending on how ambitious I am.

Now in technicolor!

2008-03-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I last posted that I feel like I should start with an apology. Not so much for being away, but for intruding again...It's just that I can't seem to keep this up with any regularity, and thus feel like an imposter in a way.

Nevertheless, I have done some knitting in the last few months. This is the Lotus Blossom Tank, and yes, that is my belly button showing. It's funny how some of the little details (e.g. wear a tank under this top) don't really intrude until you see your work in a photograph. It was a nice knit, although the bamboo is a little tough on the hands, and the six lace repeats followed by four inches of stockinette was a little mind-numbing. I do appreciate the minimal finishing, but I hadn't counted on picking up stitches and edging the sleeves and neck.

My other project is somewhat secret - aptly enough, being Mystery Stole #3 (a.k.a. Swan Lake). It's for a friend who's to be married this summer, although I don't think she reads this blog. I think it's gorgeous (althoug less so in this little shrunken preview that blogger made), even if it's a little shorter than I'd expected. I used a fairly fine laceweight and small needles (US3) so the next time I knit lace I'll probably opt for something a little more substantial...and use larger needles! To the right is a sneak peak.

Oh, and happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone.

What's golden

2007-12-27T16:55:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine just had an adorable little baby boy. Well, perhaps little is not the right word--he came in at over 8 pounds! Anyway this little not-Totoro bonnet (made with Karabella Aurora 8 yarn and modeled by a ball of Cascade 220) is earmarked for him. I'd made another similar bonnet earlier in the year, but I think the colors may be too girly for the parents' tastes. Hopefully this one is neither too girly nor too bold--I just didn't feel like going for the pastels this time.

In other news, I finished Cozy...This one's for me, and actually has gotten some use. I love these wraps that can be scrunched up into a scarf without too much trouble (Clapotis, Cozy, Midwest Moonlight...). Maybe it's the fact that I use finer-gauge yarn than is called for, but either way, it makes them more versatile, at least during the colder months.

These days, I'm working on the Lotus Blossom Tank (now a free pattern on the Knitting Daily website), which will I guess be my first real garment. I'm not counting Tempting, which didn't have much to it in terms of construction. I swatched with the bamboo and everything, but ended up having to frog and reduce the number of repeats slightly because my gauge changed on the actual project. I'm a little nervous, though--I think I can deal if it's too large in the lacy area, but I hope it doesn't end up too small. Ah, well, I guess I can always bequeath it to a petite friend!

Still beating...

2007-12-09T18:32:00.002-08:00

I haven't posted in a few months, but despite my failure to tend my little corner of the internet, I'm still here and still knitting. To the left is a washcloth that I made for a swap on Ravelry. It was a Wes Anderson-themed swap, and that there is supposed to, er, call to mind the jaguar shark. Work with me here.

I did make a couple of other things--a scarf (Liesel) that I have pictured elsewhere, a mix CD (of course), and a small handmade journal that I'm really pretty pleased with.

More knitting (hopefully) to follow.

When in doubt, knit lace

2007-09-18T00:26:00.000-07:00

I posted this question on the knittyboard, but thought I'd solicit more opinions. I had been planning to make my mother a Flower Basket Shawl, but somehow managed to misplace the yarn i was going to use. It's somewhere, I know...along with the other random items that seem to have disappeared during the move.

Anyway, I do have a lovely hefty hank of Sea Silk in Mineral (black/browns/grays), and would like to use it for a shawl instead. It's about 150 g and 660 yards...I just don't know if I want to make the FBS with it, since I want to use up most of the skein and it seems like it might end up rather large.

So I found few other patterns that might work:

Moonlight Sonata Shawl
Luna Moth Shawl (has the added benefit of being a reference to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Sea and Shells Stole (basically Print o' the Wave without the edging)

Any thoughts?

You win again, gravity!

2007-09-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a bit because I'm still camera-less. I had the bright idea to take the camera back home when I was visiting Mike...unfortunately, the camera was in Zurich with us, but the cord and charger were back in Mallorca. D'oh!

Anyway, I decided to break the silence today because I learned a lesson about knitting with laceweight yarn--something that's probably more or less universally known, but didn't concern me until it flew up and slapped me upside the head.

I'd recently started a lacy stole in Lane Borgosesia Baruffa Cashwool, by far the finest and wordiest yarn I've worked with so far, and one that proved to be as much a handful as it is a mouthful. The yarn was wound up into a neat little ball, and what did I do? I fished out the end from the center and started in.

BAD IDEA.

As it turns out, 100ish rows into the project, the ball of cashwool gives up the guts and leaves me with probably on the order of 200 yards of hopelessly tangled yarn barf. WHY didn't I start from the outside, so the ball would just spin quietly in its little ziplock baggie? Why?

After a few hours of trying to deny the inevitable, I gave up and cut off the tangle...and then spliced my work to the yarn end on the outside of the ball. I was going to simply weave in the end, but had visions of the lace unraveling when blocked. Sigh. The splice worked well, but now there's a few inches of slightly thicker yarn in the middle. Hopefully it won't be too noticeable when the thing's done.

On a lighter note, does anyone need, oh, twenty little balls of laceweight yarn for swatching?

It takes a lot to laugh...

2007-07-15T15:11:00.000-07:00

...it takes a train to cry. The song has been stuck in my head for the last few hours, uselessly, while I try to think of upbeat, cheerful songs to send to a close friend who's going through a rough patch right now. It seems like most of the songs I find inspirational are love songs--and a lot of those are sad love songs!--which aren't really appropriate in this case. I came up with this list, but it's unsatisfying:

mirah - person person
yo la tengo - sugarcube
wilco - heavy metal drummer
beulah - well, I can't decide which beulah song is appropriate, but I think one deserves to go in here. i imagine it'll be "if we can land a man on the moon, surely i can win your heart"
the delgados - everybody come down
daniel lanois - shine
lambchop - up with people
love - alone again or
super furry animals - venus and serena
the wedding present - make me smile (come up and see me)
stereolab - lo boob oscillator

Help!

Anyway, I haven't really been updating because I no longer have a decent camera to hand...I've still been knitting--I finished a teeny version of My So-Called Scarf which will be frogged in favor of a better use of the yarn, and also one of those cute (not-)Totoro bonnets from Hello Yarn.

Right now I'm blocking the Baby Bolero from One Skein. I upsized it by about 1/4 because I thought it'd be silly to make something that fits a newborn (i.e. fits for 10 minutes) and used Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Somerset. I had to make a few changes after making ridiculously deep sleeves, and I followed the general advice of not binding off and seaming everything together (too much work for a baby garment!). There are still a lot of ends to be woven in...

It's very pretty, although blocking it made it substantially bigger than I'd expected, so it looks like it'll fit a 1 year old rather than a 6 month old! Not such a bad thing--I just hope the wool fluffs up again when it's dry, because the fabric, which was nice and squishy, is pretty thin right now.

So the only thing left on the needles is Midwest Moonlight. And since I promised myself I could cast on for something when I only had one project left, next up is Mystery Stole 3. I'm excited--there have been some beautiful pictures cropping up on the web so far!

Pick me up

2007-07-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

I've had a lazy last couple of days. Mike left for Mallorca on Sunday and will be there for three (!) months, so my human contact outside of work has drastically declined. We've got skype set up, so it won't be too bad...and, as Mike reminded me before he left, we got through the four years that I lived in North Carolina seeing each other one weekend a month.

I splurged on yarn at Full Thread Ahead and Richesse (they still have a great sale going), as well as on girly bath stuff, but I still feel like I need a pick-me-up. So tonight I'm making tiramisu (or tira mi su, Italian for "pick me up") and then I'm going to wrap it up and not touch it until tomorrow, when it's headed to a July 4th barbeque in Queens with me. Except for maybe the extra that doesn't fit in the pan.

The next three months will be short on pictures, since Mike took the camera with him, but I do have the seamed up (and as-yet-unlined) Promenade bag...I made it with three skeins of Berroco Flax that I picked up when Handknits in Englewood closed. I think the pattern tells you to cast on the wrong number of stitches, so I cast on a few more. It looks quite different from the original because I didn't have the pattern to hand when I started the lattice rows--I did my yarnovers after the knit stitches rather than before, so it's a slanted lattice. I was afraid I'd run out of yarn, so I made it more of a purse than a market bag by doing one yarnover rather than two--the holes are smaller and (I think) less stretchy this way.

It's still unlined because I have yet to find a fabric store in NYC that's not hideously expensive. I thought I'd have success around Herald Square and below, but all of those shops seem to sell sunglasses, perfumes, and ridiculous tchotchkes. I'm thinking of using an old t-shirt--I need something fairly reversible, since it'll show through the outside of the bag. The search continues...

Another girl, another planet

2007-06-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Mike said he had "Don't Stop Believing" in his head for two days straight after the Sopranos finale...I nearly suffered the same fate, but managed to shunt it into the Only Ones' "Another Girl, Another Planet." Does anyone else hear similarities between the two?

I do feel a bit dissociated lately--I've been working nights for the last week and thus have been even less able to interact with the outside world than usual. On the plus side, I finally finished a few projects. The first is Liesel, which, yes, I was able to knit without singing "I am 16 going on 17" or shouting "Wheee!" at the end. It a little more orangey-orange in this photo than in real life. It wasn't the most enjoyable knit, mostly because it didn't have the redeeming quality of other lace that I've done--that is, half of the rows being mindless purling. I love the leaf pattern, though, and in person it looks like mottled autumn leaves.

The other project is the Wave and Shell shawl, earmarked for Mike's mom--although now that it's done, I feel a bit shy about giving it to her...I just think the colors might be a little garish. It was a fairly mindless knit, just a little variation on the Feather and Fan pattern, and I think it's a good idea for variegated yarns. It's not the best picture, I know, but I'm still not quite sure about it. It looks good in closeup, though.

Blocking on the living room floor right now is the Promenade Bag (with some modifications). It was a fun knit, with the exception of the linen yarn, which, while pretty, was a little tough on the hands. I still have to seam it and stitch on the handles, but I think it'll be really cute!

Out of sight, out of mind

2007-06-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a while, but I have been knitting here and there. I finished Ella, which was a relatively quick knit. I started with ~1.5 skeins of Schaefer Marjaana (a lovely, soft yarn with a subtle sheen) and was afraid of running out, so I'd initially skipped one set of increases on the triangle section. However, after nearly finishing it in the smaller size, I realized I'd have enough yarn and decided the shawl would look better as designed, so I frogged back and completed it as written. It's a hefty thing and makes my Clapotis knit out of sock yarn (Schaefer Anne) feel like a whisper. I just wish I had a better picture--it really is a lovely pattern and shows off the variegation nicely.

I also finished another Miss Dashwood in clay-colored merino yarn. I prefer the first that I knit out of Blue Sky Alpacas Cotton--it holds its shape better. I feel like the ties are tugging the yarn on this one, although maybe it would've been better if I'd knitted it at a smaller gauge.

Oh, and another petal bib, of course (it looks the same as the others). I love these things. I think people are starting to get ideas about my constantly knitting baby accessories, but they're so quick! I think I'm going to try a small sweater out of Knitpicks Shine Sport before I set out on an actual adult-sized garment.

I completed branching out v2 for Amy...Actually, technically v3. The first two turned out well, but I hadn't realized I was doing my yarnovers completely wrong (they were all twisted). This one looks more like the picture on knitty...although I have to admit that while doing yarnovers the correct way opens up the empty space, the other way had its own crooked charm.

I'm putting the finishing touches on a shawl for Mike's mom. This one is the Wave and Shell shawl, made with Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Northern Lights (the name puts the Super Furry Animals song in my head, which is a good thing). The yarn is soft and springy, but it tends to catch and split even on my relatively dull needles. I think I'll make a Dream Swatch Headscarf with the leftover yarn--I was thinking of baby socks, but the colors are a bit dark, and I don't think I have enough for kid-sized socks.

After that, all I have to do is finish up Liesel and then I'm free to start something new...probably the baby sweater and maybe another shawl (!). No matter how many I knit, there always seems to be a shawl or two lurking in my stash, waiting to be knit.

I'm not worthy!

2007-03-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

Just days after receiving those lovely gifts from Cassandra, I found more goodies waiting in my mailbox. These are from Kristin, whose knitting and color choices are so similar to my own that it's almost scary. She sent me some Rowan Cashsoft DK which I think would make lovely fair isle...something. Maybe mittens? I swear, Cashsoft DK is one of my favorite yarns ever. You could ask Cassandra for proof, as I think I mentioned it in my SP questionnaire. I used it in this scarf for my mom, and found it absolutely lovely to knit.

She also sent me this book of cute knitted accessories. It has several neat patterns for mittens and gloves, and after my relative success with Urban Necessity, I'm ready for another pair. (To be honest, I wish my knitting instincts were more seasonally-appropriate.) There's a pair of mittens with a cable over reverse stockinette that I think would do well in the Louet Gems Sapphire I have sitting in my stash.

Finally, she sent me goodies from Lush, and somehow she knew my tastes there, too! I love the bubble bars from Lush most of all. Temple of Truth is a favorite, and I'd bought French Kiss for a friend but never used it myself. The Ginger soap smells divine. It brings back childhood memories of my mother's perfume--spicy and intoxicating, just a little heady. Mmmmm...

Lest this seem like a post solely designed to celebrate drooling, I do have a little actual knitting content to discuss. I finished Mike's scarf, following the Child's Rainbow Scarf pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. The pattern is so simple, but it uses self-striping yarns beautifully! Mike wanted a blue and brown scarf, so I used Patons SWS in natural navy and natural denim and stopped every so often to admire the way the stripes progressed. I think it looks even better in Noro Kureyon because there are more color changes, but I'm pleased with this one--not too striking for Mike to wear, but more interesting than a simple two-color scarf. A man's rainbow scarf, if you will. ;)

Add another to the "just in time for spring" file (although, truth be told, I tried out the glittens today and they were necessary!). I knit this hat from some bulky yarn originally purchased to make the felted clutch from One Skein, but I think I'm satisfied with just one. It's warm and cute (in my opinion) and makes a good replacement for the one I knitted out of Lion Brand Homespun--also cute, but no good against a biting chill.

Next on the needles? I'm not sure--maybe a sweater. I really like the patterns at Zephyr Style, but most of them have boatnecks or crewnecks, which just don't suit me. I may go for Ms. Marigold, but that looks pretty similar to Sizzle, which is also on the list. They've had this teaser up for a few weeks, which looks promising...Hopefully it'll actually come soon!

Chocomel, o chocomel...

2007-03-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

Despite my pretensions at adulthood, I have to admit I have a few kid-like tendencies. I often stubbornly refuse to go to bed, and let myself fall asleep on the couch instead. I have been known, on occasion, to send my rubber ducky for a swim in the tub. And I love chocolate milk. Those of you who dislike chocolate and/or milk can skip ahead one paragraph.

I've had chocomel once before--when I was in Belgium and the Netherlands with a group of student carillonneurs. It's lovely. It's better than Hershey, better than YooHoo, Nestle, and all the other imposters on the supermarket shelf. Yumm. That was six years ago, though, so imagine my surprise when a bundle of yarn arrived in my mailbox--and stashed among it was two boxes of chocomel. :) A neat trick, since, as it turned out, I'd been craving chocolate milk again, and had gone to the store to buy some Hershey's. Guess which one(s) I drank first?

Anyway, there was much other loveliness within. A lovely skein of purple hand-dyed yarn. I wish I could capture the colors on camera. I'm not sure what I should do with it.

This pretty skein of soft burgundy wool yarn. It looks like it would make very nice wrist warmers.

And a bunch of other goodies, including a cute little i-cord maker, some yummy sour candies (now long gone), and some hand cream for my poor winter-parched hands. All beautiful and thoughtful gifts from my knitty secret pal--thanks so much!

It purported to come from the southwest United States, but the chocomel gave it away!

Just in time for spring

2007-03-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

I finally finished the convertible glove / mittens (aka Urban Necessity) after hesitating over the mitten caps for a couple of weeks. I had these done down to the fingertips a few weeks ago, but wavered over using the diamond pattern as written for the cap. I was also put off by the fact that, despite knitting these at nearly the same time and using (I thought) the same row and stitch counts, they turned out to be asymmetrical. I guess it's a little weird, but that annoyed me enough to put them down for a while. In the end, I decided to abandon the pattern and use mirrored decreases (ssk / k2tog) from the end of my 5th finger until my fingertips, then k2tog around until I had 5 stitches left. I worked the cap a few times using some variations, but I think the shaping turned out best this way.

I really liked this pattern--I found it a lot more intuitive than Broad Street from knitty. I found some pattern notes online that were really helpful in making the decision to knit Urban Necessity...I'll try and dig up the link. As I was knitting, I realized that you don't really need the 4th and 5th fingers to be uncovered and could use a cap for the thumb, because your first three fingers are really all you need to use...but I think the end result would look weird. I think I found a pattern online where someone had made that modification, but I can't find the link.

I used DK weight yarn (Karabella Majestic) instead of worsted and compensated for the smaller gauge by knitting a larger size, which in retrospect was a good choice, since I think the fingers would've been bulkier in worsted yarn. If I knit it again, I'd consider using ribbing over the mitten cap to hold it in place better, but I think it looks fine as is.

I also decided that I was annoyed by the presence of cotton yarn in my stash, especially since it wasn't enough to knit Sheldon. Instead, I decided to make some pinwheel washcloths in a smaller size than the last (teal) one, which was a little hard to handle. The purple one is going to my not-so-secret SP shortly, although I've dawdled too long to make it to the post office today.

Right now, I have a rainbow scarf on the needles for Mike. I'm making it in Patons SWS rather than Noro, and I'm finding the striping wonderful. Yet another winter knit postponed until spring!

Mademoiselle Chelsea Hotel...

2007-02-12T10:28:00.000-08:00

As I completed my umpteenth lacy scarf (Brooke's Column of Leaves scarf), the 6ths song "Yet Another Girl," popped into my head. Yet another scarf, you know?

It looks a bit better blocked than it did when I was knitting it, but in future I'll probably use less variegated yarns for this kind of thing. The picture shown on the pattern webpage looks great in variegated yarn, but maybe the contrast in this yarn (GGH top print, a DK alpaca) is too much? Or maybe it's just that the separation between the leaves is not very clear. I'm still planning to knit Liesel, but I think I'll probably use Araucania Nature Wool for it--the gradations in color are more subtle, and the yarn isn't as fuzzy (our futon is covered in pink alpaca fluff!).

I printed out the pattern for Broad Street mittens from knitty, but I couldn't get gauge with the Karabella Majestic yarn that I have without looking into some seriously tiny needles. I can't really understand why, because I was using size 3 DPNS and still getting 22 st/4 in...I guess I'm just very loose. ;) Anyway, I poked around a bit and found this pattern on MagKnits which looks a little bulkier but a lot easier to comprehend...So I think I'll give it a whirl.

Wowsers!

2007-02-10T13:45:00.001-08:00

I had a long and somewhat irksome day at work on Friday, and came home to find this bit of cheer in the mailbox--some yummy looking chocolates (I exercised extreme restraint, and finished up my leftover brownies rather than scarfing down the chocolate), seeds for lucky clovers, and a charming set of myriorama cards, all wrapped up in ribbons and felt. :) And did I mention the glowing, lovely Opal sock yarn in deep jewel tones? I love the colors! I've never knit socks, but I think this gift may inspire me to start a pair of jaywalkers. Thanks again, secret pal!

If at first you don't succeed...

2007-02-02T10:44:00.001-08:00

So the second time's the charm, eh? This was my first attempt at the dayflower lace scarf--not a huge disaster, but at the same time, only vaguely similar to the original. I didn't think much of it until a few months later, when I discovered I was doing my yarnovers all wrong--back-asswards, in fact. How embarrassing. Anyway, this one is knit in K1C2 Richesse et Soie--only one ball of soft, smooth, shiny cashmere and silk yarn. I wish I had a few for a more substantial project, but I think this one was dug out from a yarn store's bargain bin. Another small stash victory for me!

I have an imaginary friend!

2007-01-30T12:02:00.001-08:00

I mean, a secret pal. Mike seems to think that they're the same thing. Anyway, hello to my secret pal (wow, I sound like a dork) on the chance that you are reading this. Knittyboard is running a little swap, and I'm currently dreaming up stuff to send to my secret pal, as well as creative ways to communicate with her without giving away my (secret) identity. (I'm getting strange flashbacks of Jerry O'Connell...)

We filled out questionnaires to try and give people an idea of our likes and dislikes...and I recently realized that I left one blank because I wanted to think about the answer, and never answered it! The question was "what music do you listen to when you're happy?"...Well, nothing in particular, I guess, or everything. I mean, music makes me happy, but I don't put on specific music to suit my mood (except when I want to feel sad and lovelorn, and then I put on 69 Love Songs, disc 2). I've recently bought a few new albums, which I hadn't done in a while, and those are

Oppenheimer - s/t (great electropoppy stuff)

Irving - Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers (not as good as the first two, but it has its moments)

the Shins - Wincing the Night Away (also not as good as the first two...a little disappointing, actually, but probably deserves another listen)

the Rosebuds - Birds Make Good Neighbors (darker than their other stuff, but still good)

Right now, I'm sitting in the clinic, and none of my patients are showing up, which is a nice reprieve for once (usually things are horrendously busy)...I guess Tuesday is a slow day. Sadly, my clinic month is ending, and so are my days of being able to sleep until 7:30AM, knit during lectures, dress in jeans because I'm not seeing patients, and have two weekend days off in a row (!).

Lastly, I finished another small project, which is a variation on Miss Dashwood. I knit it in super-soft (but somewhat pilly) Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton, skipped the bobbles, and instead created eyelets through which I could thread some ribbon. I really like the picot cast-on edge--if I knit this again, I'll probably cast on a nice round number to make the picot points, eyelets, and decreases evenly spaced. I only wish I could borrow a baby to model it rather than stuffing it with some tissue paper and hoping for the best.

The table, strangely enough, gives a pretty accurate snapshot into my life--a Step 3 review book for whenever I get around to that, the reflection of a bottle of wine (Tempranillo, a nice Spanish red), my newest WIP (Dayflower scarf), and Diary of a Madman, which I haven't started yet but which seems somehow appropriate. ;)

Clapotis est fini!

2007-01-18T12:08:00.000-08:00

Well, nearly. I have to weave in the ends...not so bad this time because I learned a new trick halfway through--Russian join. It really worked well with this yarn, the SWTC Bamboo.

I recently joined a stash busting ring (not that I have a huge stash, just an overactive imagination and a need for spurring on here and there), and it motivated me to finish clapotis. So, without further ado, here she is!

I couldn't wait for her to block, so that's a glance in the dim light of the bathroom...This picture, in natural light, is closer to the true color of the yarn. It's also a pre-blocking photo, but I didn't block all that much--just to get a little more length out of it.

I expected the bamboo yarn to be slippery and silky, but it wasn't really. It does have a nice sheen, a little fuzz, and a slinky drape...and feels a little crunchy. It's pretty nice to knit with, but my needle kept catching on the strands and pulling them loose. I think for clapothree, I'll stick to wool.

I think I may go back to a few small projects again before starting yet another shawl. ;)

She drop

2007-01-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

Well, not quite yet. Clapotwo is progressing sloowly--I'm just onto the straight section. The bamboo yarn is oddly crunchy, yet soft to touch. I like it! I wonder if I should take out one repeat of the increase section to be double sure I don't run out of yarn...or just plan to leave out one repeat of the straight section. I think the latter--I'm too lazy to rip back so far.

By the way, isn't our weirdo marble chess set cool? Mike's parents got it in Mexico. I just thought it was a nice warm contrast to the bamboo yarn.

Philosoraptor

2007-01-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

2006 went out with gracefully, for the most part. I spent the evening and New Year's Day with good friends and caught up a little bit on sleep today. Er, yesterday.

Over to the left is a washcloth I knit from a ball of Debbie Bliss Cotton DK yarn--isn't the teal blue lovely? It should be winging its way to Renita along with a slice of Lush's Fresh Farmacy soap shortly...Should being the operative word. Tricksy post office hours.

Not much else to report. This month has worn me down quite a bit--supposedly Sloan Kettering is short-staffed in medicine residents somehow, and the upshot is that I'm working twice as hard. Not that I expected it to be easy, but it makes the two weeks at the end of the year when I'm back in Sloan Kettering much less appealing. I'm thinking of asking for night shifts then...at least they can't unexpectedly double my workload. Feh.

Anyway, one more week and then I'm back in the clinic on 8 to 6 days, which will be lovely. And maybe I'll have the energy and mindpower to study again.

(Philosoraptor, by the way, refers to a mishearing of velociraptor, when I was discussing favorite dinosaurs with friends. Ah, to be 8 years old again. Mike was reminded of Sir Francis Dracon, the great philosopher-pirate.)

In a platypus' garden

2006-12-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

The platypus made the trek up from Durham to NYC with me and currently resides in our living room. (He has no garden per se, just a little ivy-patterned pillow sham that my mom made for me.) Today, he's modeling the Seaweed and Shells scarf that I knitted for my mom. It's weird--I think I prefer the look of the one with the wrong-headed (wrong-handed?) yarnovers, but maybe that's just because the whole thing is bigger. I used Rowan's Cashsoft Baby DK (all these "cash" names are kinda funny, given that the yarn contains maybe 10% cashmere). Still, it's super-soft (more so than the comparable Debbie Bliss stuff, I think) and machine-washable, and even better, it came from the gaping maw that is my yarn stash. Who am I kidding? I'm just making room for more.

This was knitted over a week or so of night shifts...because honestly, nights are often busy, but there's also a lot of down time. It comes in chunks that are too small to do anything major (like study--or so I tell myself), but enough to knit a couple of rows here and there.

In other news, I got an invitation to my first interview for rheumatology fellowship! It's sometime in January. I have to go dig out the suits and sensible heels--here we go again.

Second chances

2006-12-18T12:29:00.000-08:00

I started knitting a second Seaweed and Shells scarf for my mom a couple of days ago...Now that I'm doing my yarnovers correctly (i.e. not backwards), it looks a bit different. So I'm planning to knit the Dayflower and Branching Out scarves again correctly to prove that I can actually follow a pattern!

Life is a little slower now that I'm on night float, which is why I have some time to post these days. Last month, I was working in the MICU, which was alternately exhilarating and exhausting. When I worked in the MICU as an intern, I found that a lot of my patients were critically ill, but I wasn't doing much for them and what I was doing for them wasn't doing anything to change their prognoses...Most of them were dying and I was unable to change that. Yet with all of the medicines and drips and lines and machines, I was able to prolong their lives. It felt awful. As a resident, things in the MICU had changed. There were a lot of younger patients, which I suppose is scary on the one hand, but on the other, well, Mike put it best. He said that the reason that we take younger patients to the MICU is because we think that treating them aggressively will actually benefit them--we're fighting hard because they have a chance of walking out of the hospital and living a normal life. I thought that was a pretty astute assessment for someone who hasn't done any clinical medicine.

And so there were times when I really felt like that was what I was doing--getting people up to the MICU, treating them, and then sending them out to the regular wards. I'd see them walking the halls and feel a little bit gratified (although to be honest, the real point of the MICU is more the nursing staff than the residents).

But there were a lot of times when I felt like I was just torturing patients with those same needles and lines and drips. And those memories, sights and sounds, won't go away.

Last month also led me to the definitive conclusion that critical care isn't for me, which is part of what allowed me to finally submit my application for rheumatology fellowship. (The other part was getting my butt in gear and writing my personal statement.) Part of the attraction, I think, is that almost all of the pulmonary/critical care physicians I've worked with are wonderful--smart, insightful, compassionate, great teachers...basically everything I aspire to be as a physician. But pulmonology just isn't interesting to me. And I don't want to be emotionally drained all the time, to become cynical, and to try not to care--which started happening towards the end of the month.

Anyway, all of that is over now--for the moment, at least. I caught up on sleep last week, and now can start focusing on new projects--Step 3 of the medical boards, interviewing for fellowship, and, oh yes, winter-time knitting.

Back to basics

2006-12-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

Last night, I discovered that my purl row yarnovers on Ella were all wrong--somehow, I twisted them and created a ridge on the right side. I'd noticed this before, but it didn't click until I accidentally created a yarnover correctly and marvelled at the difference. So Ella was frogged back to a ball of yarn.

So was Liesel, because I might as well be consistent.

I admit defeat.

The San Francisco treat

2006-12-14T14:37:00.000-08:00

Someone told me the other day that Rice-A-Roni was first developed as a competitor to boxed mac and cheese. Suddenly, many things became clear. Well, one--the name. Really, I'd never thought of it in that way, although the association is obvious. It was obvious even when I was a kid, because my nickname through much of elementary school was Rice-Aruni, and sometimes Macaruni. Not all of elementary school, mind you--it took a while for the kids to come up with that sophisticated rhyming scheme (I swear, I got "Atuni" at one point, which was pretty poor). On the whole, I think I got off pretty easy.

All of this has nothing whatsoever to do with Calorimetry, which I knit up yesterday in an attempt to get the momentum going. It's practical, in that it's a pain in the butt to wear my hair down whenever putting on a hat, and pretty cute as well, I think. It took a little fiddling to get it down to the correct size (despite my relatively gigantic head). I cast on 100 stitches instead of 120 and worked row 5 until I had 22 stitches outside of the markers instead of 38. I was using some plummy Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran left over from Tempting, below, and stuck in a few stripes of black Mission Falls Wool because I was afraid I'd run out of yarn, but I think it works.

I also have Ella on the needles, and want to get past the increases before starting the real work (family gifts, etc.):

Remembrance of things past

2006-12-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

Mike brought back some chocolate-covered madeleines from Thanksgiving with his family (possibly the tastiest of our leftovers, including the white meat that still is sitting, still is sitting on the second shelf of our fridge). I managed to finish the last of them this evening without hearing a peep from Mike, who insists on making the same joke about Proust and becoming lost in one's reveries, etc. whenever I mention eating madeleines. He told me that he doesn't associate the actual pastries with Proust, but thinks of him only when someone talks about consuming madeleines, which is funny because it's analagous to what Proust said about the connection between the madeleines and memories of his childhood. Or maybe it's not so funny.

And by the way, oh no, it's a picture of me on the internet! This is Tempting (version 2, but not II) in a plum-colored Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. It was one of my first medium-size knitting projects a couple of years ago and turned out too big and uneven...unfortunately, I had the same problems with this one but don't have the energy to correct them. I used a bit over 5 balls to make the smallest version and even though I got gauge, it's still way bigger than the small. I still think it turned out pretty well. Maybe if I had the guts to throw it in the dryer, it'd shrink to a more manageable size...

In a yellow boat

2006-11-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

I finished a little felted bowl for Mike's grandma out of some leftover pink Cascade 220 yarn (I managed to get this and the felted clutch from One Skein from less than a full hank). I burned my hand a little trying to felt the thing in the microwave and sink (I'm a little cavalier with my health and well-being), but it turned out well. It's hard to shake a tupperware full of hot soapy water. Ah, well, pour faire une omelette, il faut casser des oeufs (to make an omelette, one must break an egg).

I treated myself to some goodies from Lush--most notably Fresh Farmacy, a facial cleanser. I thought it was going to clear up my breakout-prone skin right away, but it turns out that that's due to hormones, stress, lack of sleep, and poor eating habits rather than lack of expensive soap. Good to know.

This post, by the way, is dedicated to the tv show Arrested Development. Mike and I recently finished watching season three on DVD, so the "Yellow Boat" song is stuck in my head. I also want my own chicken dance, but have yet to come up with an original idea.

Messing with the program

2006-10-31T16:39:00.000-08:00

Argh, I'm beat. Being back in the hospital after two weeks of blissful lassitude isn't easy. I've been on my feet nonstop the last two days, and I hate the fact that I have no time to teach. And I only have a little time to think. It feels like I'm playing catch-up most of the day, and it takes so much longer to get done, because I feel like there's something that I missed.

In happier news, I'm done with my cable knit bags. I modified a pattern I found online and used Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky, which is soft and yummy. Mike's parents came up on Sunday and we just hung out in the apartment, talking and eating, and I seamed and lined my bags in between bites of chocolate croissant. I was surrounded by other finished items, including a couple of scarves for Mike's grandmothers.

Perspective makes the brown one look odd, but they're both the same size. My stitching on the lining is a little neater on this one (I hid the stitches). I feel somewhat more caught up. Liesel is still languishing and I need to summon up the strength to finish up Tempting. I finally disentangled and wound my last skein of Schaefer Anne and am contemplating casting on for the Wave and Shell Shawl.

Fall back

2006-10-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

Things have been nice and lazy this past week...I feel like I've made good use of my break: a little taste of travel (Montreal), some time at home with my parents, some work stuff, some more work stuff, some future planning stuff. Unfortunately, I can smell the end of break approaching...

Oh, I forgot "some knitting." I should've taken photos of these petal bibs separately to be consistent, but they look pretty together, like the leaves on my parents' driveway, or the byways of Central Park. I made them out of three different cotton yarns--Suss Snuggle, Debbie Bliss Cotton DK, and Mission Falls Cotton. They're going to Laura soon, very belated gifts for her darling baby girl. If I'm ambitious (or productive?), perhaps they'll be joined by some other knitted trifles.

I also have a small section of the Liesel scarf completed, which has remained the same length for a month or more, probably because it resembles a small stretch of blah. I wonder if it's a worthwhile use of 200 yds of soft and shiny Jaeger silk (to make a longer stretch of blah?), and whether my mom will even wear it at all.

First post

2006-09-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

I found a website that had three-column blog templates for download. Click!

(It may not be a profound first post, but at least it's useful.)