photography upgrades

Thursday, I stayed home in order to get the timing belt on my car replaced. It needs doing every 100,000 miles or so and I wanted it done before we go to San Francisco for Thanksgiving. The car has 196,000 miles on it right now. Although it’s only a 1200 mile round trip to San Francisco, I think there probably won’t be much time left to get it done once I start being busier at work. It will also be the holiday season soon and it’s so easy to put off this kind of thing! I can’t let my engine fall out. That would be…bad.

I got off to being semi-productive rather late in the day. I left the camera in the car at the auto repair shop, but I got to thinking about the weather (i.e. all dark gray skies with lots of intermittent water falling out of the sky) conditions and how it has been interfering with my knitting photography. I therefore decided it was time to build a better light box than my previously jury rigged milk carton. I disassembled the milk carton rig over the summer and haven’t reassembled it since moving.

There are a lot of resources on the internet for making your own light box. I used the $10 cardboard model, but there are also some great directions for building a PVC pipe model. Anyway, I’ve already seen significant improvements and I am only using household lamps with no bulbs brighter than 150 watts (one 150 watt bulb and one 120 watt bulb).

multi-madness

I finished my HUGE job application last week and spent the weekend in recovery. I’ve been a bad blogger and left you photoless recently. I bet you’d actually like to see the scarves I’ve been working on. The first two shots are of one scarf that’s made of scrap Noro Kureyon.

juggling scarves

Even when I’m under a deadline, I still make time for knitting. I went off to the Wednesday night meet up and had a good time again. I was a little late because I’d made a stop at Needleworks Unlimited to spend the last amount on my card before I got a $20 gift certificate. So I bought a pile of stuff. It’s not yarn diet breakage.

I purchased a couple of things for my No Sheep for You Pal which I can’t show you. I also made a huge mistake. The basic rule behind the No Sheep for You swap is the entire lack of wool fiber in the yarn and I picked up TOFUtsies, thinking it was mainly soysilk. Ooops. I guess I’ll bring it back. The other skein is pretty nice though and I’ll send it off over the weekend.

I guess I’m a little scarf obsessed at the moment. Not only am I working on two chevron scarves, but I started two Multi-directional scarves as well. One is in Noro Kureyon and the other in Silk Garden. But hey, I learned how to juggle scarves in college.Just not 4 at a time.

This weekend I’ll be working on my slightly overdue Hurricane Sock party project. SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My essays took priority.

feet, yarn pr0n and cake

Some feet for Jen La’s contest.

some sheepy fun

I did some knitting, but there’s really nothing to show you. I cast on for another One Skein, One Day Wonder Hat and am thinking about writing up some picot tips for you all. There are two reasons I’m knitting up another hat. First, my mother-in-law needs one. Second, there was one thing I didn’t like about the first one and I’m fixing it in this one. If it comes out right, I will work on writing up the pattern for you all and writing up one in baby/children’s sizes. I’m pretty sure that a skein of Lorna’s Laces will make one adult and one baby hat, so I just need to work out the smaller hat using the remainder of the yarn. Wouldn’t that be cool? Of course the pattern will be free, but I’ll probably put down a suggested donation figure to subsidize my yarn habit. I’m also thinking about writing up a mitten pattern with picot edging so you can’t have a matched set.

I blocked a few more Lizard Ridge squares and there are four more left for me to block before I can start sewing. I also took the skein I’m using for the border up to the yarn shop and wound it into a little cake using the ball winder.

I’m also making some mitered corner squares out of Noro Kureyon for a little felted bag based on a pattern by a designer whose name totally escapes me at the moment. I have nothing to show you at the moment due to the oppressive darkness and my own lack of courage in facing the great outdoors.

In lieu of actual knitting content here is some sheepy fun for you.

socks in snow

Must knit faster.

I woke up earlyish this morning to a winter wonderland. Then I went back to bed.

I really would like to finish the sock depicted in this photograph soon – I’m nearly down to the toe and I’m a bit worried I won’t have enough yarn left. I’m not even sure how this is possible. You can’t see the sock right now, sorry, it’s not done. You really shouldn’t stretch your uncompleted sock over the handle of a shovel without expecting some stitches to come undone. And the big stripe in the photograph? I had to leave the ball of yarn in my pocket.

It’s a BFF sock in Cherry Tree Hill (by Cookie). There are several possibilities as to why I am worried about the amount remaining yarn. One is that the cables eat yarn and I mean EAT. Another is that when I divided the yarn into balls I did so unevenly. A third is that 420 yards isn’t what it used to be. We’ll see.

more on pomatomus socks and other things

Oh my god was I sick. I started to feel a little better Monday night so I went out and got a little sushi with friends, but that just made everything worse. This is because I had stomach flu… I finally broke down and went to the doctor on Tuesday and he put me on a liquid diet for 48 hours. And then I could have soft foods (think tonsilitis foods, but no dairy). I had real food for the first time for dinner last night and I overdid it a little, so I think tomorrow I will take it pretty easy. At least I won’t overeat again. My stomach seems to have shrunk a lot. I lost at least six pounds, but I wouldn’t recommend this diet. It’s far too painful. And it will probably all come back by the end of the week.

Of course, I tried to knit during this time and proceeded to screw up the gusset of the sock over and over and over again. I think maybe the sick part was screwing with my concentration, but it was hard to resist getting knitting done. Anyway, I’ve fixed all my errors and have safely made it into the foot. There are some funky things you have to do to keep the lace pattern rectangular over the top of the foot, but at least I haven’t left them out this time.

I finally understand why row 1 of pattern B has a stitch that you don’t use the first time you knit pattern B. This is because pattern B results in an increase of one stitch.

I did one job application, so I was able purchase a skein for my stash! I got a skein of Cascade Pastaza and I plan to make the PDA holder in Alterknits. Unfortunately, my local yarn shop is really nice and they wind a lot of the yarn for you. So the photo is not of a skein and doesn’t show the color as well.

Today, I got an advance on my next application. It’s a skein of Noro Kureyon, but it’s not for anything exciting. I lost a mitten from a pair I made and so I’ll make a new one. Still I have a lot of things to finish in order to fulfill my promise of getting four of my incomplete projects done.

I also got some more yarn packed into boxes and selected a few things to go to Goodwill. I’m not sure if they’ll take yarn without the label, but it’s worth a try. I tried to throw it out, I really did.