Domestically Challenged

Letters from the air mattress

Every time I worry about not being able to knit in California I look at this picture and think, "Hells yeah!".

I love that the model on the cover of this book is wearing a sweater and bikini bottoms, and is holding a surf board. It's enough to take my mind off purging/packing all of my earthly belongings and my new sleeping arrangement.

Yes, that is an air mattress; albeit, a glorious air mattress. Cleans up pretty good, don't you think? After selling all of my bedroom furniture, I figured I would just sleep on the couch in the living room until I moved out. That was before I discovered that in the wee hours of the morning, the couch doubles as the epicentre of kitty activity. Did I mention that there are a lot of cats in my apartment right now? B adopted two kittens on top of the two cats that already lived with us. Here's a picture of feeding time at the zoo when we had three kittens.

(We are seriously outnumbered by the furry ones. Even minchie is distressed...but then again, she thinks she's a human of royal descent.)

It's my second last week of work and all I want to do all day is knit. I must be stressed. My roommate, who is stressed about finding a place to live in Sudbury has already knit two pairs of socks this month and is almost done designing her first sock pattern. It's strangely comforting to know that I'm not the only one who uses knitting as a coping mechanism.

I'm trying to finish up all of my UFOs before leaving. That way, I can start fresh in San Diego. Last week, I finished the Matinee Coat and yesterday, I mailed it to my father's secretary of a billion years who just became a grandmother for the first time. Congratulations, Karen!

 

• Pattern: Matinee Coat by Debbie Bliss (in the book Baby Cashmerino)
• Yarn: Milky Baby (I'm unsure of the fiber content because the ball band is in Japanese)
• Needles: US 2 & US 3
• General impressions: It was a fast knit but I really didn't like the shoulder shaping on the front pieces because it didn't really match up with the arm pieces.

Django: Done

I finally finished Django last night. I was hoping to finish them before I saw sue on Saturday, but it wasn’t in the cards. In fact, I was so close to finishing them that when I got on the bus back to Ottawa I didn’t think I had enough knitting left for the bus ride home. I was worried that I would be at a loss for something to do (I hadn’t brought another project with me). Boy, was I wrong. I only had one pattern repeat and two toes to finish and it still took me the entire ride to get through it. The socks are slow going. The other thing I should mention is that the pattern is 5 pages long and until I got the hang of the chart, I regularly rifled through all 5 pages to find the information I wanted. Django is definitely not for the faint of heart. Things did speed up though when I broke the charts up into 5 stitch blocks. I highly recommend doing this.

After thinking I was going to run out, I was pleasantly surprised that I had just enough yarn to knit both socks. There isn’t any left for darning though. Which brings me to what I would do differently next time: longer heel flaps. I knit the heel flaps to be 2.5 inches long, but that wasn’t deep enough to cover the boniest part of sue’s heel. This will only make the socks more precious though because their lifespan will be much shorter.

I have no idea what to cast on next, but I have a longing for big, fat needles. I’ve been knitting too many things on 2.25mm dpns!

Happy Birthday, sue!

Today, my dear friend sue is 30 years young. Over the last 10 years (!!) I've seen her blossom into the gorgeous, intelligent, creative, kind, thoughtful and generous person she is today. She has always been a bright spot in my life and I am so thankful that the University of Toronto residency system made her my mentor in first year.

Happy Birthday, sue! I hope it's the best one yet.

Django Update:

Sue's birthday socks reared their ugly head again last night when I noticed that one of the cables in the third leg repeat went the wrong way. Even though I was a mere row away from starting the heel flap, I ripped back 20 rows to fix it (rip 8). B nearly passed out. Her latest theory is that I could rip out both socks, knit Monkey and still be finished sooner than if I kept going on these ones...I think she's right. But where's the fun in admitting defeat? I am going to make these socks my bitch. Django isn't going down without a fight though. A set of wooden Brittany US 1 dpns was severely injured in the making of the first sock. 

PS: For all of those who emailed me, the guy in the photo from the last post is my brother...and yes, he is single.

Prince Edward Island

We have been in PEI since Sunday and have yet to see the sun. Locals are appaled at the amount of rain PEI's gotten this week, and so are we. My father had planned to bicycle everyday but has been terribly thwarted. He has resorted to cycling in the rain, but hasn't been happy about it. Needless to say, we are all getting cabin fever. I have a few FOs to show, but because there is no sunlight here, the photos aren't the greatest.

I started to make Marnie McLean's Carlsbad hat for my dad when I was in Baltimore. I was paranoid that it wouldn't fit but it seems to be working out. He's actually worn it (it's been cold enough), which I take as a good sign. According to Ravelry, I started this April 15th and finished it on August 4th (I had an end to weave in). I used Louet Gems Natural Merino on size US 1 needles.

I also got to gifted a pair of Endpaper Mitts to Hayumi, who came from Japan to visit with us in PEI. She was thrilled because armwarmers are very popular in Japan right now. It seems like all I knit is socks and armwarmers these days - maybe I should move to Japan. Ravelry tells me that I started these on May 9th and finished them on June 10th. I used Lang Yarns Jawoll Jacquard Superwash and some left-over Zitron Trekking XXL. I'm surprised that I still have some left-over.

I think that this is one of my favourite FOs to date.

I'm still trucking along on the Django socks. B revealed in the comments that I was worried that I would not have enough yarn to finish the socks. This fear was not unfounded. Luckily, I only need to knit a few more rows and I have a fabulous idea...