Have I got some boring stories for you!

I've had to let go of the idea that my blog must be "interesting" or "earth-shattering" or "exciting." When I started this blog, I said I didn't care if anyone read it... that it would be for my own amusement. HA. Denial. Anyway, now that I know I have at least 6(!), count 'em, 6(!) regular readers, I thought for a moment that I should only post "good, well thought out" items. Well, never mind.

Hyphens are dying in record numbers, and does anybody care? No. Er... mainly because we've never had a firm grasp on which words actually contain hyphens.

LOL. WELL, it appears the gods have favored you today... I just deleted all the pics I was going to use for this boring post. Good one. Doh.

I forgot that Lee went on a road trip last weekend. One of our work friends (Jim) is in a band called Tavern Hill Liars. Once a year, they play at a party of the sister of one of the band mates in Green Bay. This year, Jim's dad drove a bunch of them in the Endeavor.




















Would you trust this man? This is Jim's dad.




















Does Jim really think this is appropriate attire for infiltrating Packer Country?




















Aren't you jealous that I've got such a handsome husband?

Vast and Deep is my love for sweaters.

I have installed the new buttons on the cardi. Only pressing remains. I guess I never showed you how much yarn I had left. I thought for sure I'd need another skein.














Here is my new sweater... it will be a split neck pullover with a collar. And 3/4 sleeves. 3/4 because I don't think I'll have enough yarn. I got this yarn at Stitches Midwest. I bought the package of 10 50g balls. I thought that'd be enough for a sweater, and it was the only on in this color. Well, it took 3 balls for the front, so that's 3 for the back, leaving 2 for each sleeve. I'm a math genius! BTW, the color in this shot is right on the money... isn't she pretty?















Anyhoo, in an amazing display of delayed gratification, I did NOT buy 10 skeins of yarn at $12 each today for my next sweater. Being a math genius, I realized that 10 x 12 is NOT a small number. But, OH, that yarn was nice. Maybe later. (See? DELAYED gratification, not DENIED gratification. It's a fine line. I'll be seeing that baby alpaca/silk blend again. Don't tell Lee.)

I said it before, and I'll say it again...

I wish I were a cat.

Because, my goodness, are they lazy. And they don't seem to MIND that they're lazy. This is a common sight around here: on the bed, no apology. In fact, they look at ME as if I'M intruding.













Which, I guess, ok, I was kind of intrusive with the camera.





















But Sibbie didn't need to look quite so PUT OUT, and disapproving. Have you all seen this site?
Ha ha... that wacky internet!

Told You So...

I knew I'd get too busy to write. Work has been busy, but not too bad considering. I'm thankful for that.

Our Babylon-5 watching came to a screeching halt this week, as Lee and I have evening commitments every night this week, and Lee's going away for the weekend. I have exciting things planned that involve scraping wallpaper and patching and sanding. ooooOOOOOOh. I know you're jealous.

I'm working on a new sweater from the same book the cardi is from. I bought new buttons for the cardi, but haven't put them on yet. I should get on that, because it is almost cool enough to wear it now. Yay! The new sweater is a bit boring... I'm knitting a row, oooh, now I'm purling a row, etc, ad nauseum. BUT, it is an excellent no brainer for watching B5 at the same time.

That is all. :)

Oh, wait. I updated the gardneradoptionjournal too.

Finished Product

Here is the long anticipated cardigan. It is mostly done. I put buttons on it, but I don't like them, and they're too small - or else the holes are too big. I'll get new ones. Also, I need to do some work with the iron to even some seams out.



































Check out my (finally) decent looking sleeve join. Ignore the occasional purl when there should have been a knit.














My arms are too short for this pattern. Oopsie. I don't mind cuffs.

New Depths

I may post pictures of the ill-fated cardigan today. I had another stunning revelation last night, re: why the sleeves weren't setting in the arm hole right. Um. That would be because I knit the WRONG SLEEVES. I wondered why I had this FLAP at the shoulder area that didn't look right. And, here's the thing... I got the pattern from the coolest book in the universe... you pick the body, then you pick the sleeves... but there are different kinds of sleeves... you know... set in, raglan, etc...

Turns out I picked the raglan sleeves, and not the set-in sleeves, despite the handy codes on each part of the sweater, telling me which sleeves would go with that particular sweater. It's not TOTALLY as bad as it sounds... as I only really have to pull out about 15 rows from the shoulder... it could have been much worse.

The crazier thing is that I had one sleeve already set in, except for the bizarre shoulder flap, which I thought I would "deal with later after getting the other sleeve in." I was tired of sewing up the sleeves, so I started flipping through the book to see what my next sweater would be, and I stumbled across the sleeve I SHOULD have made. Yes. You can imagine that bad, bad feeling in the pit of your stomach... the one that tells you you're WRONG, and maybe you should have referred to the book EARLIER, when the sleeves weren't fitting in right the 1st time.

As grumpy as the revelations made me, I am still in love with this cardigan and with knitting. It's a relief, actually, knowing that there is a solution to the sleeve dilemma, and at least I wasn't missing how to set a sleeve... because it looked pretty good considering. And I have actually MADE THE RIGHT SIZE for once... it's gonna be cute. :) Eventually. Gah.

Good things about this sweater:
It's an awesome color
It's awesome yarn (80% cotton, 20%wool)
It's going to fit me
I took my time to make the decreases look right
I re-did parts that looked goofy (instead of just plowing ahead in my usual way)
I didn't forget any button holes

All in all, it's a satisfying project.

Working Girl

I don't mention work much here, but I'm totally going to use it as a cop-out for not blogging more. School just started, so everyone needed their computer set up AT THE SAME TIME. Trouble: I'm one person, and there were, let's see, 600 computers that were unplugged, unhooked, etc. Hmmm....

Starting Tuesday, my number of computers grows exponentially. So, if you don't hear from me for awhile, it's because I'm exhausted and watching Babylon 5, then going directly to bed, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

BTW, if you haven't watched Babylon 5... it's totally awesome. Ok, season 1 is pretty bad... no budget, but if you're willing to laugh at such dialog as "It's more fun than a toilet full of snakes" and "He couldn't find that planet with a ouija board and a hunting dog" (I'M totally laughing at that last one... every time... Lee too... I can always get him with that line.) then this show is for you. Then in Season 2, suddenly everyone can ACT, and the plot takes incredible turns and, ok, you'll understand how riveting it was when I tell you that I COULD NOT KNIT DURING MANY EPISODES. Wow! I can usually knit through anything, while giving 1/2 my attention to shows. We're almost through Season 3. We've ordered Season 4 which won't arrive, at the earliest, until Tuesday, so we've got to conserve. And since we're in the instant gratification generation, we won't watch the season cliff-hanger, until we have the next season waiting, so we can just segue right on in.

Elevator Etiquette

When getting into an elevator with strangers, where do YOU look?

At my work, the elevator is small, but everyone tries to stand with their back to a wall, but then you have the awkward "I'm not looking at you" shifty eyes. I stared at a lady's fancy sandals and manicured toes, and wondered if she was staring at my birkenstocked, un-manicured toes. I believe my feet were more comfortable, but her feet definitely had bling. She had diamonds on the soles of her shoes...

Next day, I got on the elevator with one of the people from yesterday... not the shoe lady. Another person was passing by and said "See you Monday!" to this lady. She said "Tuesday... Monday's a holiday." Person 2 said "Oh! I forgot!" So lady and I looked at each other, and the ice seemed to be broken as we both agreed that we'd been pretty much counting on this 3 day weekend since, um, MONDAY morning.

Maybe it's just a matter of eye contact, and an ice-breaking moment.