String Makes a Great Birthday Gift

My elder sister celebrated her birthday on Saturday. My poor sister.... Because her birthday fell at the end of August, it always felt like the last, rattling, spooky gasp of summer, snatched back from the hungry jaws of fall and the drudgery of the school year. Granted, it wasn't always like that, and I'm sure now it's not like that for her. There's only the ongoing drudgery of work and adult responsibilities, and there's very little one can do to escape them.

For once in my adult life, I got her gift to her before her birthday. Of course, this year it wasn't a matter of finding the gift and getting my arse in gear to get it in the mail to her. No, I was all about getting a jump on things this year, for I started her gift three months in advance.

And used a helluva lotta string.

Let me tell you, Gentle Reader, knitting a big wool blanket during a record-breaking triple-digit heatwave is not fun. To further complicate matters, my feline children did their best to let me know they wanted the blanket for themselves. I was forever having to shoo one or more of them off the thing as I worked on it in the afternoons and evenings. I probably plucked enough cat hair off the blanket to make a whole new cat.

Bucket still tried to claim the blanket after I finished it.

In addition to the big piece of string I gave my dear sister, I also sent along a teddy bear that's probably older than my elder sister that's very similar to one we had as kids.
I can't remember if it belonged to her or if it was mine, but I remember the bear had only one eye and always sat amongst our small collection of stuffed animals in our bedroom in Enid. Dad had brought it home from Otasco, but I don't recall when. I think Mum still has it, boxed up somewhere for one of us to claim and relieve her of. (Fat chance of that happening any time soon.)

Happy birthday, Squeegie!

Flying High Again

After the hellish week I had last week, my Monday was spec-frickin'-tacular! Let me tell you about it, Gentle Reader.

I Run, Therefore I Am
So the boy was out of school yesterday, and I was prepared to have a good day nevertheless. We hit the gym, and I'd already decided to cut my weight work a bit short so I'd have plenty of time to run. And given that I'm still not back up to 7.0 MPH, I need extra time to get in what I consider a decent run.

And run I did! For the first time since my right ankle started smarting, I was able to put in 10 miles. Boy oh boy, it felt so good to run that far. In fact, I only hit the 'ol pause button once so I could adjust my knee band. Before the ankle ouchie, I typically stopped every 3 miles so I could swig a little from my water bottle and fight the slight dehydration all my various allergy and asthma meds cause. What's even better is that I felt full of energy for the entire run. Gotta love that!

If I can repeat that feat tomorrow, I'll have logged 900 miles since the end of July. Woohoo!

Look What I Made out of a Piece of String!
Okay, technically I finished this little project this morning, but I wrapped up most of the concentration-heavy work last night. But I'm very, very proud of this scarf, which I knit for Mum from yarn she bought, because the pattern wasn't a simple garter or stockinette thing. Nope, I was knitting and purling in the same row, and the pattern in each row changed practically every row--and I didn't screw up royally!

Okay, sure, I probably could have paid more attention to the tension so my gauge was more even. I still consider myself an early beginner, and this project, like the others I've completed, is a learning experience. This pattern certainly gave me plenty of opportunities to practice my knitting and purling, as well as particular combinations of those two basic stitches. The end result, I think, is quite lovely:
Maybe with a bit more practice and, well, attention to details, I can revisit this pattern and make something that ends up looking like the picture above.

My next project is another blanket, this time for the boy. The lovely blue, purple and black wool yarn I scored for half-price that he initially liked turned out not to be good enough. He picked out some blue and red on our second trip to Michael's and directed me to make him a striped blanket "with blue first. Remember that," he warned me. The FSM help me if I forget!

The Amazing FUBAR Blanket

Hey, Gentle Reader, what's made of a long piece of string, three shades of pink and shaped like an equilateral triangle with one point lopped off?

Why, it's the amazing FUBAR blanket!

Pretty pathetic, non? I worked about a month on this sucker, putting in 204 rows of carefully tracked knitting and purling. Still managed to fuck it up beyond all recognition.

Yeah yeah, I know. If I'd paid attention to the gauge, I would have realized I was screwing up. If I'd used the same kind of yarn for the whole project, I wouldn't have mucked this up. But doing so was impossible--and that's what I get for buying clearance yarn not once but twice and then having to resort to buying a third brand.

Sadly, this blanket was going to be a gift for someone. Now...now I don't even think it's fit for my feline kids.

Gads. I suck.

My Latest Endeavor

Lookee! I made something out of string!


I've been posting so infrequently in the last month that I have no idea if I've reported about my attempts to learn how to knit or not. Well, if I haven't, Gentle Reader, guess that cat's out of the 'ol yarn bag now.

Yes, in October I partially taught myself how to knit by watching videos online, trying to decipher some bad photos and illustrations on various Web sites and by picking up a fairly helpful book at HPB. But when I didn't seem to produce anything that looked anywhere close to functional, I got myself to a Knitting 101 session at the local Jo-Ann Fabrics and learned a fourth way to cast on and found out I was doing the knit stitch fairly correctly. (Pin a rose on my nose!) During class, I failed miserably at purling: My brain just couldn't manage to do the exactly opposite of the knit stitch in the same two-hour slot during which I'd somewhat mastered said knit stitch.

Feeling somewhat emboldened by the class, I set out to make a scarf for the boy. Not that he needs a scarf, mind you. He claimed from me this very soft knitted scarf and hat a few years back because they're in rainbow colors (he claimed them back when he was all about rainbows and "The Rainbow Connection" and The Muppet Movie), and he still likes them very much. But since he helped me pick out the clearance yarn, I thought I'd make my first project for him.

That project would probably take a competent knitter two, maybe three hours. It took me, a completely incompetent knitter, roughly three weeks. The fringe on the end? Now that took me about two hours.

My next project? Perhaps another scarf, but one that features purling, because after finishing up the boy's scarf, I took a few evenings to practice the purl stitch, and I think I've got it under control. My ultimate goal is to make this bitchin' R2-D2 hat for the boy, but I somehow doubt I'll ever be a competent-enough knitter to pull of that one.