Jon's Knit Blog

Ah, Summer.

Ah, the joys of pinwheels and blue sky. What? You think I'm talking about something outside? No, I'm talking about my new project:

It's actually called the "Child's Geek Spiral Pullover" but as I both detest that name and the yarn called for, Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille, I've renamed it. I'm working in Blue Sky Cotton (which I bought at Knit Happens last week). And that's where I tracked down the pattern, too.

I had, honestly, been looking for a pattern because the baby girl (you know, the one getting Rosetta) who is planning to be born has a big brother who's going to be 2 at the end of August. And I can't very well take his sister a crazy intarsia blanket and he only get something store-bought. So I was looking for a pattern of something to make for him. There were rules, right Holly? Rules, I tell you.

No intarsia. Nothing crazy. No complicated pattern that would cause me to fuck up and have to restart the whole thing over again.

So I was looking through books, browsing various patterns, and I started looking at this book called Loop-d-Loop, which is full of some of the most atrocious patterns I have ever seen. As I was flipping through it going, "Nasty. Nasty. Horrid. Crime against Nature," I found this sweater (which I can't find an online photo of... yet), and I said, immediately, "That's what I'm making."

And so I am. Although I changed the yarn. I tried to not have to make a gauge swatch, but I got about a third of the way up the sleeve, and Wendy, sitting across from me, said something to the effect of "Did you measure it yet?" So someone gave me a ruler and the next thing you know, I’m holding my head in my hands, and everyone instantly knew.

"Didn’t get gauge, did ya?"

"How far off were you?"

So I went from 6’s to 8’s. And I was damn close. Close enough that I just decided, "Screw it, I’m going to make it." I almost finished the first sleeve that day in Alexandria. Oh, what joy it was to knit pure, plain, unadulterated stockinette stitch, in one, simple color, in yarn that says it’s cotton but feels almost like there’s silk in there. So on Saturday night, I finished the second sleeve and started the front.

That’s when that false start came about. And tonight, I decided that I’d do it over, and do it right. I’m glad I did, because I think, that after two movies and four rows of triangles (the pattern is picked-up stitches and decreases to make triangles, in garter stitch), it looks pretty damn cool. And there’s something to be said for pinwheels and blue sky. Right?

Finally Talking About Knit Happens

Yes, Virginia, Wendy really did knit Inishmore in 9 days.

And Kristine really did try to steal Wendy's cormo. See?

And, surprise, surprise, people took my photo and actually posted it to the internet! (I'm not posting it here, but maybe you found it...)

And I'm sure you're not surprised at all to hear that I started something in plain one-color stockinette. OK, so it's a sleeve of a kiddy sweater, and I'm now almost done with the second one, and the front is a complicated garter stitch patchworky craziness, but it's going to be fun and it's in Blue Sky Cotton which rocks. And of course I had to buy 5 skeins of the most beautiful Koigu which I will eventually get around to photographing. And I will probably turn into some sort of a man-scarf. And I bought yarn to knit up an actually teddy bear. And I even managed to get it all to fit in the suitcase for the trip home!

And, to make it even better, I got to watch Phyl-Phyl knit something orange!

Knowing In Advance

There's something weird about knowing that I'm checked in for my flight before I even go to sleep the night before.

And there's something great about knowing that tomorrow afternoon, I'll get to hang out in a fun knit shop.

Yay!

(I might not be able to blog from DC, so I may not get to see you all until Friday night. But if I'm lucky, I'll end up with a photo of Wendy wearing Inishmore!)

Mom's Evil Idea

So I'm onto the 21st row of blocks. Rosetta's almost 16 inches long now.

My mom had an idea which you could call a suggestion. She said that I shouldn't give The Rosetta Blankie to its intended recipient, my dad's brother's daughter's soon-to-be born daughter (which is, in other words, my first cousin's daughter which is either my second cousin or my first cousin once removed or some such something or other. Anyone know?). Mom suggested that I save The Rosetta Blankie for some "more worthy" recipient, implying the as yet (as far as we know) unconceived future offspring of my sister and her soon-to-be wed fiance. We know they plan on kids. We know I plan on knitting for them.

What do we think? And if we keep for the potential-future-niece, what should we knit for Daughter-Of-Cousin? And what if the potential-future-niece never materializes (although we hope she does.)

Decisions, decisions...

Desperate Housewives & Desperate Knitters

I hate this time of year. "Season Finale" this and "Last Episode Ever" that. I mean, what, we're supposed to sit and knit all summer watching shitty reruns?

That said, I got most of the next color row done watching the (TiVo'ed) season finale of "Desperate Housewives." What did you think? I was very surprised by who died (and by who didn't). I really hoped there'd be some sort of realization that George the pharmacist was behind what happened to Rex, too.

But can I tell you how far I jumped out of my chair when Susan found Zach in Mike's house! Yowza. And when you figured out who Zach's father really is? And the whole thing with Mary Alice? Wow wow wow, I wasn't really expecting everything to tie up so nicely.

So the question is, what's going to happen next season? Will it even be interesting?

And the other question is, how long is this ****ing blanket going to take? I only got two rows in tonight. And after I finish this block, I have to go back to my least favorite part, cutting lengths of yarn. Bleah!

Jon Q. Progress

Yes, folks, it's a venerable middle of the weekend entry at 2 something am on Sunday morning. Becuase I'm so happy! I have an entire evening free to just knit and knit and knit and knit. And I got 11 rows of of the Rosetta Blankie done. One was a color change row; still, it's very exciting. I have finished 19 rows of squares meaning I've turned 655 pieces of yarn into 36" x 15" of blankie. Into just under 20,000 stitches. And I think I've decided to aim for a blankie which totals 60 rows of blocks. It'll be about 36" x 45". It'll be 63,000 stitches of intarsia-fied goodness.

I must be insane.

Intarsia Intarsia Intarsia!

(Get it? It's supposed to rhyme with Marsha Marsha Marsha!)

I only got through two rows tonight. I know, I'm a loser. In my defense, though, I had to bring some work home, and one of the rows was a color change row.

Anyhow, it looks pretty much the same, although a bit longer. How often do you all think I need to be taking pictures of it? I mean, I'm not like Wendy who can knit an entire Alice Starmore cabled sweater in less time than it takes me to knit a row or two.

I'm going to DC next week, and that will be fun because I plan to spend some time at Knit Happens doing something that's decidedly not intarsia. Just what, I do not yet know. But I know that it will not have intarsia in it. I just know.

A Long but Good Day

It was a good day, but it would have been better had there been time to knit something.

I woke up late (huzzah!) and went out to lunch, after dropping a bunch of stuff off at the dry cleaners (I have another black tie thing on Monday. Will they never cease?). Then I went to lunch at Bond 45. It was good; they treated everyone a bit more like tourists than perhaps they should (I know what profiteroles are. And they had risotto spelled wrong on the menu.) But the food was good, if not great, and the service was very friendly. A good spot to go in the theatre district, particularly if you want to try somewhere you haven't been yet. And yes, the mozzarella tasting is quite fab.

The afternoon was spent in the dark... at The Pillowman, which is a disturbing play. It's about a writer who's being accused of murder because the police have found these cases that are all too similar to a few of his short stories. And the weirdest part? It's a comedy. It has a great cast (mmm, Billy Crudup!) and excellent production values. It's creepy and haunting, but I enjoyed it.

Then I walked 19 blocks uptown and had dinner at one of my favorite places, Picholine. I love this restuarant very much, and the fact that they had soft shell crabs today only helped. And I had a wondrous cocktail called a French Martini. (Grey Goose, Chambord, Pineapple Juice.)

After that? "Faust" at the Met Opera. Not the best opera, but by and large a fantastic cast and a good time. The funny part was that there was a woman sitting a couple seats away from me who was actually wearing a pageant sash. "Miss Massachusetts." The smaller print on the sash informed you that it was from the 1994 Senior America pageant. The woman was overly gung-ho about the opera, too. After the tenor (Roberto Alagna) sang his gorgeous aria, she "Bravo"ed a little bit too early (the violinist wasn't done with his high note), so at intermission, a couple of hard core opera snobs (not me, though I can fall into that category) berated her. She got very defensive and for some reason decided to announce that she was a Holocaust survivor. But then one of the women who was berating her announced that she, too, was a Holocaust survivor, a native of Warsaw. The whole thing was just weird. Although not as weird as René Pape's costume where he had a tail (he was playing Méphistophélès, obviously...). Anyhow, can I just comment on how hot I think Dmitri Hvorostovsky is? OK, that's weird that I'm talking about an opera singer being hot.

So after the opera got out (mind you, it started at 7:30 and ended at 11:20), I decided to walk home (hence the lack of knitting time). I had to stop at Duane Reade (which is sort of like CVS or Walgreen's but only to be found here in NYC as far as I know). I got toilet paper, toothpaste, Listerine, new heads for my electric toothpaste, and a can of diet iced tea. Fun, huh?

As you see, although it was a day of no knitting, it was a nice, solid, long day which was packed full of interesting things, including conversations with my mother and both of my sisters. And as for knitting? Well, as Scarlett O'Hara would say, "Tomorrow is another day."

And it will be the day where I will watch that knitting group episode of "Stacked" which is waiting patiently on my TiVo.

Must... Watch... More... Television

Well, it appears that one of the best ever episodes of TV to Knit By will air tonight. Stacked tonight will air an episode where Katherine (Tony winner Marisa Jaret Winokur) hosts a knitting group! And Pamela Anderson is going to knit a "Tube Top." I was so amused by the preview that I can't wait to actually see the episode.

Speaking of TV Celebrities, I had a hysterical conversation with one this morning. I wish to God I could tell you his name, but in the interest of not getting fired for revealing work-related-shit on the blog, I'll refrain and just tell you that all through my conversation with him, I couldn't actually remember his real name, I could only remember his (most famous) TV character's name. Finally, at the end of our interaction, I actually remembered his name but I'm not even sure if he heard me use it. Still, I was very proud of myself for remembering it. Because although he was on a famous, long-running TV show, he was "only" a supporting character.

And no, even if you guess right in the comments, I will not tell you who it was.

And So It Goes

I've been busy since I got back from New Orleans! I only got to spend one night sitting on the couch knitting. And that was the night I was probably supposed to have spent at Boyz Night. It just had been a long day at work and I really was not in the mood to go out -- so I simply stayed home. It was nice.

But tonight, I get out of work at 6:00pm, and then I think I'm going to go have a little sushi and then just come home and knit. And luckily, I can stay up late (well, I'm allowed to, since I don't have anywhere to be tomorrow until noon. We'll see how late I actually can stay up.

In other news, and even though I've never been a huge fan, I've always liked Kylie Minogue (well, maybe not so much during that "Locomotion" phase) but I was saddened to hear that she has breast cancer and I wish her a speedy and full recovery.

Gator Swimming in the Clouds

Gripe Du Jour

You know what I hate? Besides balls of yarn that have knots in them, I mean?

Cell phone voice mail. When you're calling long distance. I swear, it's a conspiracy on the part of cellphone companies the world over: you ring the number, and the voice mail options -- "Press 1 to start over, otherwise, wait for the beep, but first dance the hora before we can connect your call" -- are diabolically programmed to require that you spend just over one minute - whereas if there were no stupid recording, you could leave a message and be done with it, and it would not be a full minute. But since they round up, well, as long as it's 63 seconds, they get to take you for the full 120.

Know what I mean? Aargh.

On a slightly sillier note, did you read this article about a too-successful game of Hide and Seek?

It's Not a Comeback, It's A Return

Well, I'm back from New Orleans. If I could audioblog, I'd go into a lengthy discussion of exactly how to pronounce the name of this venerable city, and how not to. But I can't.

So I'll mention some of the highlights:

Great food. I mean, great. And the fantastic southern hospitality made everything even that much more wonderful. Great cooking, great seafood (man, those oysters! I ate dozens!) and great cocktails, too. Now, I'm not talkin' about Bourbon Street here. I'm talkin' about the upscale bars or restaurants where you can get cocktails like an Old Fashioned, a Pimm's Cup, or a Sazerac. Heck, I even had two Grasshoppers. Eep! Of course, Bourbon Street is fun but it's also really raunchy (a bar that in and of itself is a tourist attraction? I mean, yikes!). And the beads thing? Yes, it's true, people do flash various body parts in order to obtain beads. At least, on a drunken Friday night they do. (I avoided the chaos of Saturday night, which I think was probably a very wise choice.)

There was one visit to a knitting shop, there were multiple visits to a mask shop, which was fantastic fun. I actually have a small collection of masks, but now it's a couple of masks bigger!

I took a sock-in-progress on the trip, but I don't think I knit any of it at all. Now that I'm back home, though, I have been working again on the Rosetta Blankie. I'm going to London on August 8th and I hope to have it done then to give to the intended recipient. I guess the questions is not going to be "Will I finish it," but rather, "What size will it be when I stop working on it in order to let it be done in time?" Ah, the beauty of things that don't have to fit!

The Big Easy!

I'm here in New Orleans and it's great fun! Enjoying every minute of it so far, including the drunkeness, of course. Honestly, I haven't been that bad. And I even found a yarn shop in the French Quarter. Didn't buy anything, though...

Anyhow, I have lots of fun things to do while I'm here and blogging is not hugely high on the list but I did want you to know that I'm thinkin' of ya, dear readers.

More soon!

The Ten Minute Blog

So you might have noticed Em's grand idea to limit blog writing to a ten minute entry. So I'm trying that this evening. It's 12:13am as I start typing this, and when it gets to 12:23, I'm simply going to stop. I'll try and type the whole way through, so no hyper-links, except Em, who I already rechecked her URL before I started typing this entry.

And of course, I have to say that now that I've given myself a time limit for tonight's typing, I seem to be making more typos than usual. Weird, huh?

Anyhow, I am really sad that I missed the Harlot the other night at Lord & Taylor. How depressing is that? Right? And what's more depressing is that I won't make it to MDSW next week. And all the cool knitbloggers are going to be there. Arrgh! I should, like, come up with a shopping list and entrust someone brilliant to it. I need some really nice shetland wool, actually, because I bought a book that Ms. Harlot recommended ("Latvian Knitting." Look it up if you want to see it that bad) and there's a great sweater in there which I want to make for the baby who's going to get the Rosetta blankie. Of course, it'll be for when she's older, but still, I am going to want her to have it. It's in two colors of shetland wool. I'm thinking pink and brown because I'm very interested in that color combo right now... Of course, it has to be the right pink and the right brown, so how on earth can anyone choose it for me. Oy.

Anyhow, I have an important lesson to teach you: Do not attempt to be able to have the same attention to devote to your knitting if you are also watching "Monty Python's Flying Circus" on BBCAmerica while you're knitting trying to knit. It is just a whole heck of a lot harder to pay attention to yarn (especially to twisting lots of colorful pieces of yarn around each other) when you're guffawing over lumberjacks and the like. My God, Monty Python is still just about the most hysterically funny thing ever. I mean, I saw "Spamalot" on Broadway, but it's just not as funny as when it's with the original Pythons. Although, if you're a Python fan, I highly recommend that you check out the new show "The Hollow Men" on Comedy Central. They're hysterical and clearly inspired by Python. And C.U.T.E.

Speaking of spelling things out, I really want to see "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" at the Circle in the Square Theatre.

Anyhow, my topic for tomorrow will have something to do with planning and choosing my travel knitting. I'm leaving for New Orleans on Wednesday (the reason I'll miss MDSW), and I won't be back until next Wednesday. It's for a convention, as I've said before. Even though Em thinks that I'll be spending more time eating beignets or drinking Hurricanes. She's right about the beignets. But wrong about the hurricanes. I'll be drinking Old Fashioneds, thank you very much.

The last time I had a convention with this crew was last year in San Antonio, and I got drunker than I had in years. Like, college level drunk. Rip roaring hangover drunk. Puking drunk. Fun. Incredibly fun. And yet... not so fun the next morning!

Eeek, only one more minute left to do this.

And I've hardly talked about knitting at all! Well, I do knit, although not tonight. I'm taking a break from the Rosetta blankie and not really in the mood to pick up anything else. And I had a few things I had to surf through on the web and I have a bunch of errands for which I have to get up early tomorrow morning.

And a guy who I think is cute today, who is British, referred to me as "cheeky." And I found out that he winks at me, but not at a buxom female colleague of mine! Too bad I know him through work so it can never go anywhere.

That's 10 minutes, kids. Talk to you soon!

editor's note: just in case you are curious, 10 minutes of typing chez Jon means 696 words and 3700 charaters. That's almost 70wpm. I was once timed at over 90wpm at a headhunter's office. She was flabbergasted.

Three Square Feet

That means, my dear blogospheric friends, that The Rosetta Blankie measures 36" wide. And 12" long.

It also means I have thousands more tiny squares to knit. Fun Fun Fun.

Anyhow, I had some really interesting things that I had been planning to blog, but my mind really just went blank, and I'm going to bed.

I'll probably dream of tiny knit squares...