Step Into My Thimble

This completely unexpected little package of yarn arrived yesterday. Thanks Siow Chin! It was really a surprise. The keychain is cute too.

She sent two balls of a Japanese yarn, Olympus “Angora Tweed,” in a pretty, creamy color with little flecks of brown and gray. It’s been a while since I tried to interpret Japanese writing, so it was nice to read in her note that the yarn is 20% angora, 70% wool, and 10% silk. At the moment I’m trying to decide between a hat and a pair of mittens. Both for myself, of course.

Anchor sweater sleeve cap #1 worked out just like I wanted it to, so there will be no ripping out…hooray! Now I’m on to sleeve #2. Maybe by the end of this week…

My next project is the Knitty Leftovers Vest, for myself. But I must admit a couple of things: I have nowhere near enough leftovers of any weight yarn to make this, so I bought new yarn for it. I hadn’t looked at the latest KnitPicks catalog and was completely unaware of their whole new inventory until last week’s meeting of the Oak Park Stitch-n-Bitch. I really wanted to try their new yarns, especially with the great prices, so I ordered nine skeins of the Angora Silk in assorted colors. Right now I think Barn Red will be the main color (for ribbing etc.) but I might change my mind when it’s all laid out before me.

Bonus kitty photo… I was moving some old files from a box into our relatively new desk. Stanley decided the box lid was the perfect place to hang out and watch.

Click to go to Stanley’s very own photo album!

I have made a new contact page. Contact.

Also I am very happy to have found fireFTP which is an extension that lets you FTP within Firefox. Especially good since WS_FTP is no longer free, and I don’t have access (or admin privileges to install) any others at the office.

There are a ton of Firefox extensions to mess with here and here, including an emulator if you like old text-based games. I never played any myself, but Rodney used to, so we might try it out.

I’ve reached the cap shaping for the first sleeve of the anchor sweater. Don’t you like the stripes at the wrist?

This part of the WWII era pattern is a little goofy. You know how usually when you’re doing a front and back, you bind off five or six stitches on each side for the underarm, and then you do the same for the sleeves? This pattern has that for the front and back but not the sleeves (but I did it anyway). It also asks you to bind off stitches one at a time for the entire sleeve cap shaping, instead of working decreases (which I am choosing to do). So there may be a few do-overs with this first sleeve until I figure out the best way to finish it.

Oh no! Our home DSL is on the fritz*. These times make you realize just how much of an Internet junkie you really are.

By way of Librarian.net I’ve learned that one of the Internet filtering software companies (N2H2) that a lot of schools and public libraries use maintains a database that categorizes web sites. Wouldn’t you like to see if yours is in there? Go to the database and try it out. Mine came up as follows:

The Site: http://www.stepintomythimble.com/
is categorized by N2H2 as:
Electronic Commerce
Recreation/Entertainment

Accurate enough, although the stitch markers haven’t exactly been flying off the shelves lately.

I finished my square for the Tsunami Quilt Project the other day. Click it to see more detail in the FO Gallery.

And I have been tagged by Jena of Craftmuffin to do that music thing that’s been going around. This is a challenge of immense proportions to me; I can not do a short list of favorite songs because it’s always changing.

1. Total amount of music files on your computer?
At home: at least 1200. At the office: around 350. On the iPod: another 350 or so. Yes, there’s some overlap between the three.

2. CD you last bought?
In fact this very morning I won an Ebay auction for the Yin Yang Room which is a 2-CD set of music described as “Eastern Beats Meet Western Chill.” I heard one track from it on an electronica Internet radio station (Netmusique, I think) and I liked it. I bought it on a whim thinking that if I don’t like it, I’m sure one of my three Indian family members will.

But in all fairness, I do not buy a lot of music any more. One of the reasons I have been battling debt forever is my indiscriminate behavior in the record stores during college. I probably buy 10 CDs a year nowadays, and most of them are used.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
I’m playing a CD by DJ Cam in my office right now, but I don’t like it that much. The current song is “Hip Hop Opera.”

4. 5 songs you often listen to, or which mean a lot to you?

This is the hardest thing for me to answer. I can’t narrow it down to five songs. When I think of the ones that resonate in my head, I get embarrassed because it’s always like Hall & Oates or something really tacky. I have to choose artists rather than songs; I just do.

• Hoagy Carmichael
• Bent
• XTC
• Cocteau Twins
• Stereolab, which is really my all-time favorite.

5. Who are you going to pass this on to and why?

• Monica and/or Lynette from Passionknit because even though we’ve all IM’d each other about all kinds of stuff, we haven’t really talked that much about music.
• Susan from Labradorable because I know she has some very clear music tastes but I’d like to hear her favorites.
• Heidi from Absinthe Knits because in everything else so far she seems to have wonderful taste and style, and oh yeah, she has the same name as me.

*Our DSL service comes from a certain three-letter global telecom company that a lot of people don’t like. I have had several run-ins already with their billing and general telephone service departments. But I do have to say that this is the first time in –seriously– two and a half years that we’ve ever had a single moment of trouble with the DSL. Can’t complain about that too much, especially after the enormous woes that went along with our previous cable modem setup.

Today I made a couple of great things. The first is a Thai noodle recipe that is found in the current issue of the Penzeys spice catalog.

I changed the recipe slightly. I added some pieces of cooked chicken, as well as a pound of snap peas and some leftover spinach. The vegetables I parboiled for two minutes in the noodle water and removed before cooking the noodles. I left out the shallots (even though I have some) because when it was all done I was too hungry to slice them up. I used regular linguine because I didn’t have a chance to go to an Asian market. And it all added up to success. We served it warm, but I’m looking forward to the cold leftovers tomorrow. The Penzeys Thai Seasoning blend is very nice, it kind of lingered in my mouth after eating in a really pleasant way.

The other thing I made is a double batch of my mom’s excellent cinnamon rolls. This recipe is one she put together from some 1950s cookbook she has, and has been making them for us for years. It’s a recipe for sweet dough, plus brown sugar, butter and cinnamon for filler, plus a butter/powdered sugar icing recipe. They’re so great. You just don’t even know. Totally worth the wait as the dough rises twice, and all the extra effort.

I may have used a pan that’s a bit too small this time, because my rolls got all overgrown. Some of them even turned sideways. Here they are before the icing.

And with icing.

If you would like this recipe, read on…

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