Jon's Knit Blog

Damn You, Parker Posey!

I'm sure this will start making the rounds any second: Parker Posey doesn't like knitting:

"Knitting isn't as comforting," she said. "It can go on forever."

from Sunday's New York Times.

Seems she prefers needlepoint.

Well la di da! I still think she's a fantastic actress. And probably I'd have other thoughts about her, too... if I were, um... straight!

Technical Lovelitude

We're upgrading to MT3.16. Please forgive any problems such as messed up comments and the like. This will be fixed soon.

A Little Knitting Helps

So I had a really crappy day.

I was waiting for the UPS man to come and bring me my new IR Cable for my TiVo, in the hopes that it will be the solution to my TiVo problems. And I go to the online tracking, and see that UPS claims to have attempted delivery and noted that there was noone to sign. Sure, there's nobody here to sign if you don't ring my freaking doorbell to let me know you're here, you stupid freak!

Anyhow, after I called UPS and promised that I wouldn't pay for the overnight shipping I didn't get, I went to Lincoln Center. Where it promptly started to rain and thunder and be all terrible storm-like. And so I had to buy an umbrella since I had a three hour opera to sit through and hadn't eaten anything yet. (What, I hadn't left the house. I was waiting for the UPS guy!)

I had a decent dinner (from the food "bar" at Whole Foods. Mostly yummy, but overpriced, and the red lentil/coconut milk soup is nasty. Threw that away.

Then I went to the opera, where, unbeknownst to me, I had been issued tickets in the "talking a lot" section. I seriously wanted to slap everyone. Including a couple of the singers.

Finally, I came home, and had a burger delivered. Only they wrote down the wrong address so by the time they finally got here, the burger was cold but I still felt compelled to give a nice tip because, after all, it wasn't the delivery guy's fault that the order taker messed up.

At least I got three more rows (just rows, not rows of blocks, I'm not that superhuman) done on the Rosetta Blankie.

And now I get to go to sleep...

Dangly Bits

Tonight's main project was cutting another batch of yarn up into pieces. I then succeeded in attaching 35 more of those pieces to the slow-growing mass of chaos yarn that is the Rosetta Blankie.

As I believe I've mentioned before, each square requires a piece of yarn just about 30 inches long, so I cut 32" pieces and have plenty for weaving. And honestly, they don't get tangled on the wrong side.

And they're kind of fun to try and photograph!

I mean, there's lots of squares and they look great, but you sort of know what the blankie looks like, so I'm trying to have some fun with photography at the same time. And I know the blog is more exciting when there's a picture on it. But what did you really think I was going to show you a photo of? The pocket square I bought Saturday at Barney's?

Frustration

So you probably know that if I'm knitting at my house, I probably am also watching television. So you can probably imagine how frustrated I am by the fact that my TiVo has decided to stop working properly. Well, it's actually only lost one of its functions, but in my opinion, TiVo's ability to change the channel on the cable box is one of it's more important skills. After all, you have to change the channel to be able to record the appropriate show.

So I have been trying to trouble shoot and figure out what is wrong. So far, it's not going well. There's a little cable with these IR thingies on the end which emits the light signal that is supposed to change the channel, and I think it might be faulty - because the TiVo works fine as far as anything else is concerned, and the cable remote still changes the channels on the cable box... so I ordered a new IR cable. $6.95. And $25 for overnight shipping. Because, well... I need it! Although that would have bought some nice yarn... Damn!

Look, Ma, I'm Photogenic!

Well, not much knitting done in the past week. I managed to get a row of blocks in over the weekend.

In my defense, I worked five days, had a four hour lunch one day, saw two Broadway shows, two Off-Broadway shows, drank three beers (Guinness, no less), indulged in behaviours that would scare Bill Frist and Tom Delay, and bought a bow tie. At Barney's, no less.

So all in all, it was a good week...

Lies! Vicious Damn Lies!

Told by none other than yours truly.

See, I got home from work last night at about 9:15pm. I was supposed to get out of work at 7, but I didn't leave the desk til 8. Then I had some dinner in the employee cafeteria. It's not the best food, but free is always good.

So then I walked home and talked to my mom on the cellphone for a half-hour. Partly about stuff in general, partly about the upcoming family wedding, and partly about my next "big" vacation.

I got into the house at 9:15, as I said, and had to check email and stuff like that. I also had to do some online research for the upcoming vacation. Then I started to feel sleepy and just not motivated to move from my computer chair.

Then, it was all I could do to just roll myself into bed...

... so all that talk yesterday about how it was going to be this week's big knitting day? Lies!

Sorry! Well, we'll hold our hopes out for Saturday, which should be our next big knitting day. Maybe I'll do two rows of Rosetta blankie to make up for my slack-ness...

And I have the prospect of a short trip to New Orleans to motivate me through all this business. Sure, it's mostly for a convention, but I imagine that New Orleans will play New Orleans and I'll have a lot of fun.

Anyhow, back to work... and tonight, to "Sweet Charity!"

Tonight! Tonight!

I'll see my knitting tonight!

Last night's play ("Hurlyburly") was long. No play tonight, though. I can just come home after work and knit.

Hooray!

Pre-Empted!

Knitting is not going to be able to be my priority this week. I don't have my regular days off, for a variety of reasons, so I'll be working Monday through Friday. Today, I got out at 11:00pm. The rest of the week, I'm supposed to get out at 7:00pm, but I have theatre on three of the four nights. ("Hurlyburly," "Sweet Charity," and "Glengarry Glen Ross," in case you care...)

So Wednesday night will be the best night for knitting around here. I might even get a whole row of blocks done on the blankie. Stay tuned, we'll see!

Glorious!

The backing fabric for the Rosetta Blankie was in my mail box when I got home today.

Would that I had sunlight to photograph by! I actually took this photo using my macro lens - I was holding it ridiculously close to my OttLite. It gives you a decent sense of what the colors are like. (That black square, though, is really green. I promise! My camera doesn't seem to like taking close-up, indoor photos of dark green. I need to learn to work its white balance better. Or something.)

So tomorrow, I have a 9am train to DC. I am going down for a gala to be held tomorrow evening. And I come back to NYC arriving at 2am.

Now that is what I call a stupid idea for a trip long day.

See you Monday!

For Your Amusement

350 Blocks Knit

And some of them look like this:

And yes, I will be lining the back. Here is the fabric. From Glorious Color. That's right. Kaffe Fassett fabric to back a Kaffe Fassett knitting pattern, even if I'm not using his colors for the knitting. I love the contrast the circles will make with the squares rectangles.

No, Really!

That, in case you can't tell, is a close up of the Seed Stitch Scarf. I'm not quite sure how to take a photo of something that's 8" wide and 75" long. So I just took a close up. Again, it's Colinette Prism, in the Cardinal colorway. I used three skeins to make this scarf, and it took a dog's age.

And tonight I got another row done on the Rosetta Blankie.

Here's a current photo of the backside.

I am very proud to tell you that the only row that has any ends hanging from it is the very last one. All the old ends are woven, and only the active yarns are hanging. It's very exciting.

I had a fun experience with the color choices this evening. I was on the phone with my mother, and I said, "So Mom, what color should I use next?" She picked Yellow.

"Light or bright?" were the choices I offered her. So I let her pick the colors for a little while. Suddenly, she realized I was asking her pretty often about colors, and she said, "Wait, just exactly how big are these little squares?"

"Five stitches wide," I told her. I thought she already knew.

She was, in a word, flabbergasted. She said she couldn't imagine how I could be doing that. I had to tell her, I was actually having fun. Then I started on yet another square but couldn't figure out which yarn went where, so I had to hang up. But a few TiVo-ed episodes of "Desperate Housewives" later (did you love the bathroom threat of a visit to Mrs. Van de Kamp's?), and that row is finished.

I worked a bit more on my new project which is sort of weird but fun, and now I'm blogging and about to go to bed.

See you soon!

Good News and Bad

Bad first, though.

So knitting is supposed to de-stressify? Last night, I didn't really have enough time to deal with a row of the Rosetta Blankie, since the next row is a color change row. I had just had too stressful of a day at work to want to have to deal with that.

I just wanted something simple and easy and nice. But I couldn't find anything suitable. Then I realized that I had swatched for a hat and could just cast on and start it. Two strands of Koigu on a lovely circular needle made from ebony. So I start casting on. And the brass flange leading from the wood to the plastic bendy part comes off. So I cut away the cast on, because it won't go over the weird pieces now, and push the thing back and decide that I could just cast on in the other direction. But the exact same thing happens!

Let me tell you, knitting is not destressifying if your needle keeps breaking.

Anyhow, I found a different needle, a plastic circular which I hate, and cast on for a funky, silly scarf-y thing. I'm using a needle that's much bigger than the yarn calls for, and doing YO, P2TOG for an entirely huge amount of stitches, partly just to see how it turns out. I cast on, then made it through two rows before going to bed. But at least it was an interesting change of yarn.

Anyhow? The good news?

Seed Stitch Scarf is done, or, at least, it will be after I weave in the ends. It's 75" long, which is taller than I am. I ended up with about 7 yards of yarn left. I didn't knit all the way to the end because the pattern the whole way through had been two row stripes from different skeins. Even though they're the "same" colorway, there's enough variation that it created a pattern which I didn't want to mess with right at the end. So I worked until the penultimate skein ran out, then I knit one more row with the longer yarn and bound off with it.

And now, I have to go back to the palace of stress known as my job. It has been so busy lately; none of us are having any fun. But what can I do? I have to pay for this yarn habit. And for a place for my yarn to live. And for superglue to fix the flanges on my needle...

Quote of the Day

"I am as gay as a pink leather piñata." -- Harvey Fierstein in the New York Times.

Boyz Night

Well, that was fun.

Boyz Night was crowded. I think we ran out of chairs! I finished the blocks I started last night, but I did not take yarn to start the next set of blocks because I think that would be too complicated to do as a social activity, so I started in on the never-ending Seed Stitch Scarf. And I am pleased to say that it's almost done.

There was lots of other knitting to see, as well, some of which you might find on Mark's blog, including his fabulous loop-stitch pillow.

But there was an important question brought up tonight at Boyz Night, and I thought I would bring it to your attention.

Which is "More Girly"?
A: Knitting
B: Sucking cock

(Sorry to be so blunt but that's what the question was. What do you think?)

Squares, Squares and Nothing But Squares

Actually, it was only one row knit. But it was the color change row, and it took a long time. And in my defense, I had to cut more lengths of yarn before I could start the row anyhow. So I got a lot done.

I used the new blue three times in this row, so that was exciting.

In other news, I saw "A Streetcar Named Desire" tonight, and spent most of it wondering why British directors think they should be directing American plays, starring British actresses, on Broadway. In other words, I just felt like they were somehow disconnected from the South that is the soul of the play.

And it was really fucking funny when the bozo in the row behind me said, "Oh, I forgot about that part" after Stanley raped Blanche. Forgot? Goodness!

So anyhow, if you're debating between seeing "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" or riding "A Streetcar Named Desire," well, I firmly vote for fear of poets rather than romantic public transport.

But that's just me. And I'm a guy knitter, so you know that there will be skeptics...

No Knit Day

Not a stitch! I spent a large portion of the day vegging at the computer. Then I had one of the more annoying taxi-drivers ever (I got out after about 4 blocks without paying. It's the second or third time I've just left a taxi.) He was incompetent. I told him where I wanted to go, and which way. He didn't reply, didn't acknowledge, then he made a turn totally unrelated to the way I wanted to go (and he turned left from the rightmost lane, which really pissed me off). Then he asked me something totally stupid, and I reminded him of the way I had told him to go, and he didn't say anything, and all I could think to say was, "Do you even speak English?"

He was all indignant about that, let me tell you. He started in on how he'd been driving a cab in the City for 16 years, and of course he spoke English. And Hebrew. And so forth. And I simply suggested that it would be better if he spoke it to a different person. And I got out of his cab.

Then I found another cabbie (from Africa, no less) who was cordial and who drove safely, even though he was talking on his (headset) phone the whole ride. But it was fine.

Then I had a yummy dinner (monkfish with shrimps in a creamy tomato sauce and torta di ricotta at La Masseria on West 48th Street) followed by the great treat of getting to watch Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin fight tooth and nail in the amazing revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at the Longacre Theatre. See it if you love good drama and, of course, if you can.

So that was my day. Complete with a total lack of anything involving my hands and fiber. But otherwise, it wasn't so bad!

Yarnomania

I wasn't supposed to. You all know that I have way too much already. But yesterday at KNY, I bought MORE yarn. More, I tell you.

OK, so it was just one more ball of Zara, in a color they either didn't have when I made the initial purchase, or a color I simply had not noticed. Either way, it's new to me and will be new to the blankie as soon as I start knitting this afternoon. And in case you're curious, I'll have you know that it's 1499, Sky Blue.

The other exciting things that happened at KNY yesterday were that I got gauge for the stockinette portion of the lace sweater, on a US7 rather than a US6, but the best part was that all the ends of the Rosetta blankie are now woven in. That's 455 ends, mind you. Granted, some had been done by carrying along while knitting, but some simply had to be woven in. So I'm pretty freaking happy that's what's going on there. And I'm even happier that I was right: the technique I have figured out for weaving all ends in on a color change row works so there will be very little need for weaving in for the rest of the blankie!

Although I have to confess that the search for the link to the photo of 1499 (I figured it'd be easier to borrow a photo from a yarn site than to try to take an accurate photo of the color) has me a little bit sad, since I found an etailer who has a few more colors of Zara than KNY - and charges $1.45 less per ball. But hey, then I would have had to wait to start the blankie. And I figure that I'll be far enough along by the time the yarn would have gotten here that I don't really want to order more and try to introduce other colors that far in. And I got a frequent knitter discount at KNY so the price is almost a wash. Especially since I didn't have to pay for shipping and got to have the absolute pleasure of knowing that I'm supporting an independent retailer that I like a lot! Plus, it means that I can hang out at KNY and not feel guilty about knitting foreign yarn...

Nuttin' Honey

I have very little to say today! So I'm not even sure why I'm blogging, but I am.

I finished the current row of color blocks last night, and I think I'm going to go spread out on a table at KNY to work on more of the ends. This will also hopefully where I figure out if what I did to start the current block row was right, and I have no more weaving to do. So that is motivating! Because I think that if there were fewer ends hanging off the back side, the color change row would have gone more quickly. (I kept grabbing the wrong end, which slowed me down!)

So that's that.

Oh, and I got to take today off from work. But I have to work on Thursday now... But since I was kind of feeling bleah about going to work yesterday, that's nice. Although it means that next week I will have to work six days in a row, which is never quite so fun. But it's more fun than being jobless!

Ok, I'm starting to ramble now, so I'm going to just shut up...

Need More Light!

Oh, wait... I got a new light bulb in Ohio. And I got a lot of yarn, too.

Let's start off with the two gorgeous hand painted skeins.

On the left, a rayon boucle-ish yarn from Blue Heron, in a colorway named Tulip. On the right, a skein of Petite Voodoo, a lightweight silk/wool blend from Twisted Sisters. It's label-less, so I don't know the name of the lovely pink and gray colorway. The shop model, for which they were out of the pattern, is an amazing cabled rib scarf. I copied down enough info to where I should be able to make one.

Next, we have eight skeins of Diamusee, in a colorway which appears to suck the light both from the room and from the flash of the camera. I hope you can get a bit of a sense of the purples, greys and greens in this colorway.

Of course, you know I like Butterfly 10, although I wish the color, particularly of the beautiful royal blue, would have come out better. And I also bought another skein of the Giotto, bright pink with hints of orange. I guess I should learn the name of this colorway. I'm going to make another of the ruffled scarf, I believe. Also for a 6 or 7 year old girl. This one is going to be the flower girl in my sister's wedding this summer.

And am I not wrong to think that this:

is possibly the absolute cutest yarn in the entire universe? It's Lorna's Lace's Angel (70% angora, 30% lambswool) in two tiny little skeins. I meant to put something next to them to give you an idea of scale, but I forgot. I don't even think I'm going to knit this yarn. I just want it to sit in a beautiful glass bowl and simply... just... look pretty.

And are you ready for a complete surprise? I bought something that has absolutely no relation to yarn:

Fifteen (thought you can't see them all) fat quarters. That's right. I'm going to try my hand at quilting. Because I don't have enough to keep me busy just with my yarn. I mean, having a hugely complicated intarsia project, a lace baby sweater, and who knows what all else, well, that's just not enough!

Speaking of said complicated intarsia project, I knit two rows (not two rows of blocks, just two rows) this evening. It took an incredibly long time because I think I figured out, on this go-across, how to work a color-change row without leaving any ends to weave in. I think that this row is only going to require the snip-snip of my dear Gingher scissors and it will be ready to go. God, I hope I'm right, because if I am, well, the color-change rows will be complicated, but there won't be any weaving in to do. Hope along with me, please?

Rainy Saturday Morning

It's nice to be away from the City, but it's also nice to be back in the City.

One great thing about being away from the City is how roomy and fun the yarn stores are. So of course, even though I need not a yard of yarn, I bought plenty! I haven't had a chance to photograph the unpacking of the suitcase just yet, but there will be some fabulous photos coming soon. Can we say we're looking forward to a vest to be made from Diamusee? And that's just one of the many, many, surprises to come.

Thanks again for all your kind words regarding my intarsia. I can't wait to get back at it... which will be when I get home from work this evening.