Step Into My Thimble

Carolyn generously hosted a little going-away party for me last Friday, complete with tasty snacks and knitting and many of my favorite Chicago knitting friends.

The best part is, I got to meet this little lady in person!

You may recall that’s the striped baby vest I made up using scraps of KnitPicks Andean Silk. After Mary‘s baby shower I really thought she would have a boy. But oh well, she and Ellie‘s daddy are enlightened enough to dress their little girl in green and brown.

The funniest thing about her at the party was her constant staring at everyone else’s plates of food. That’s a sign of progress if there ever was one. Pass the pico de gallo and the chips, mom!

Well anyway, thanks to Carolyn and all the others there for giving me a bittersweet farewell. I’ll miss all of you!

This is the first sleeve and shoulder for Winnie’s Turtleneck Shrug.

This much would have been done sooner, except:

• Buying a house and quitting a job got in the way
• Switching from the 12″ circ to other needles for the more straight piece of the shoulder took a lot of noodling. The best ultimate approach was to switch to dpns for the underarm bindoff (including one needle a couple sizes larger to keep the BOs from being too tight), then go back to the 12″ for the decrease rows, then back to only two dpns, with needle caps on them as you see in the photo, for the rest of the shoulder. Phew.
• I discovered one knit stitch in the ribbing that I didn’t like. It was 7 or 8 inches from where I was and I wasn’t ripping out that much to fix it, so I dropped down and sorted it out. Then I didn’t like how I had reassembled that column of stitches, so I did it over twice until there was perfection!*

The yarn is multi-ply, and a little splitty now and then, otherwise super nice to work with and I love the color.

This weekend Rodney comes and we start packing up some of the craft stuff, among other things. Also all the framed objects de art are off the walls now, so it’s starting to feel like moving for real. Did I already mention Stanley’s living in Michigan now too?

Also there will be a fun knitter-goodbye party tonight, hosted by Carolyn, my first knitting friend in Chicago.

*Knitting for another knitter has to look spotless, you know!

First of all, no pictures here today. Just some blathering since I feel like it’s been a while. Still working on the shrug for Winnie, just ribbing, not much to show off. I neglected to take any pictures at the Michigan Fiber Fest, but I did score a little Tintagel (the selection was purt-near dismal this year, unfortunately), and one giant skein from a new-to-me Michigan vendor named Briar Rose Farm. Very nice handpaints. I left it all in Kalamazoo.

Weirdness: I have been dreaming about strange things, like joining a swim team and eating ham. I would not do either in real life.

Badness: I got a charley horse in the middle of the night last night! Damn I hate those. Especially when you’re too tired to remember how to make the pain stop, and bend your foot the wrong way for five minutes, like I did. Now I have a very sore left leg and will be limping like a fool all day. I better eat some bananas.

Sadness: I think that’s the right feeling. Yesterday was the day the announcement of my job got posted far and wide. I was a little sad because I wanted to tell some of my local archives colleagues personally before the news went out, but they found out via professional listserves and then all called me. I feel sad about it. (I also feel a lot of control-freak issues, because people are starting to take over some of my responsibilities, and I’m really not ready to let go!!) Also in the Sadness category, I love my local Stitch-n-Bitch ladies more and more every time I meet them, as I did last night. I will miss them a lot.

And whatever: Whole-wheat blueberry pancakes, leftover, with honey on them, are very good. Also, we got the pest inspection on the house back, and all is well. And, the bank appraisal was a good 15% OVER the purchase price, so we shouldn’t have any problems with the mortgage going through. I have a few ideas for fix-ups, but nothing nearly as wonderful or vast as Absinthe Heidi and her husband. Check out their house blog–something else I probably won’t do!

Also known as Chocolate-Studded Shoe Leather. They were supposed to be oatmeal chocolate chip. Hmm…now that I think of it I realize the one thing I forgot: the oats! There is half the dough left, and what’s already done will still taste good with a half-melty bowl of vanilla ice cream, so all is not lost.

So, I’m chilling in Kalamazoo now. The rest of this week is pure vacation for me, and muchly needed what with all the job-quitting, house-buying, friend-goodbye-ing, packing-up stress of late.

I guess I survived the Certified Archivist exam yesterday. At the end of it some of the others and I talked about how too many of the questions were vague or based on assumptions that weren’t spelled out. Since I had to resign recently and the options for archivists in Kalamazoo are rather limited at the moment, it won’t be the end of the world if I fail, but I invested the time and the money already… And I even did study much more than I thought I would. Eight weeks from now I’ll get my score.

Pinwheel is finally done, as of last week, and just needed a wash, a block, and a suitable photo location. Click for more info/gallery.

I have to apologize for being very slack about replying to comments lately. Yes Julie, I will be at the MI Fiber Fest on Saturday so let’s meet! I’ll send you my cell phone number. I hear Tintagel is going to be in the white industrial barn, booths 71-72, so there’s a good chance you could find me there being a total TintaGroupie. At least when I bought some two years ago, it was the best yarn ever!

My Oak Park knitting group is famous. A few of those quotes are out of context or were attributed incorrectly but that one about gateway drugs, kinda funny! We are getting a ton of new sign-ups to the yahoo group since the article was printed yesterday.

Oh yeah, and the house pictures are here. Don’t view the set as a slideshow though, or you’ll miss the very important descriptions.

This is the beginning of a Turtleneck Shrug, for Winnie, my Stitch Ya Neck Out pal.

I got a 12″ Addi Turbo for this project. I remembered why I don’t like these, they are just too slippery for me because I knit continental. I might use this opportunity to learn how to hold the yarn in my right hand, because I got a long way to go with all that ribbing…

House inspection this morning, pictures sometime later!