8 random things

Glenna just tagged me! My first tag from a knitblogger!! I feel so honored, and it's come at an appropriate time, since I have naptime to blog (sick kid at home means all rehearsals and the like are canceled for today) and I don't have any interesting knitting to show you (but I will later this week, I promise.)

Anyway, the deal is this. I list 8 random things about myself, and then I tag 8 people to do the same. I'm not entirely sure I can think of 8 people who read this blog, but I'll do my best.

1. I consider myself a level-headed person, capable of dealing with most situations with cool reason, but when someone I love gets sick, I have very little fortitude. Like today, for example.

2. About a week after I found out I was pregnant with kiddo #2, I broke out into some serious hives. They were everywhere between my neck and my knees. It was weird and very uncomfortable. Fortunately, they went away within a day.

3. I once sang with a band. It was a group of neuroscience graduate students (former colleagues of my husband, before he ditched the PhD program to work at a software company), and their band was called "The Male Men." They were hired to do the entertainment for a conference of psychoimmunologists (or something like that), and I was the honorary female singer for about a half dozen songs because none of their singers had the range for such hits as "Billy Jean" and "Love Shack." I wore tight vinyl pants and lots of make-up and I had a great time. I doubt I'll have the chance to do something like that again.

4. I don't know how to use the speed dial on my cell phone. And you know what? It doesn't bother me.

5. One of the most eye-opening and empowering experiences of my adult life was helping to organize a two-day strike of the grad assistants' labor union here in 2004. I want to write more about that someday, perhaps in a more structured, narrative essay than is appropriate for a blogpost.

6. I skipped third grade.

7. Hmmm, I need to think of something knitting-related to put on this list...It's hard coming up with something interesting that I haven't already said...Well, here's something. Despite my tendency to start way more things than I can reasonably finish and leave half-done projects lying all over the house, my actual stash is really quite organized. It's probably the only well-organized portion of my stuff, actually, and that includes music scores, CDs, books, mail, you name it. All my yarn is in clear plastic tubs so the mice in the basement can't get to it; yarn for future projects is kept together, and leftovers are grouped according to weight. I rarely have trouble finding anything when I need it.

8. I made this for my husband before I knew any better:



I think it was at least six years ago. He never ever wears it, and that doesn't hurt my feelings because I wouldn't wear it, either. Someday I'll frog it for a Danimal sweater or make some charity hats or heck, just donate the whole thing somewhere, but for now it languishes on the top shelf of the closet in our bedroom. I haven't made Stuart another sweater since, and it's not because I don't want to, in principle. It's because he has very specific tastes that put the kibash on anything that is interesting to knit. This includes: stripes, cables and colorwork of any kind. I just can't get jazzed about knitting a gray st st sweater in a man's size, y'know?

Tag time! Steph, Jenn-Jenn, Jen, Thorny, Katie (her blog is private, so no link, sorry), Whitney...and, er, two other people who can surprise me with their memes, YOU'RE IT!

teaser

This is finished:



And this just got started, though it's almost done:



These are both gift items. I'm not sure if the intended recipients check Mad Knitting regularly, so details will follow once they've safely arrived at their destinations.

Finished! four danimal sox

I'm counting these as FOs because I've got two pairs done, though from the looks of it, I could probably get another pair out of what's left:



Pattern: none, really, just vanilla top-down socks
Yarn: Trekking Pro Natura (75% wool, 25% bamboo) in a yummy green and blue subtle stripe--the colors are brighter than in this picture; try as I might, I can't get a good photographic representation of the colors in this yarn
Needles/Gauge: size 1 DPNS for 30st=4"
Made for: this little guy!



Even though he bosses me around...



Since the weather's been unusually warm, Daniel hasn't actually worn his new socks yet (no need for wool when you don't even need a jacket outside). When he does, I may try and get a shot of them on his little feet, but no promises. It's not like he sits still to pose.

finishing one thing, starting another

I don't have a knitted FO to show you, but I have good news: my dissertation is DONE!!

done done done

You can't call me "Doctor" yet, though, because my committee has to read the paper and listen to the recording and they may suggest revisions (hopefully nothing major, though they may want me to fix the typo on the effing TITLE PAGE) and then I have to do a two-hour defense and turn in a bunch of mindless paperwork (with more fees--someone explain to me why it costs ninety bucks to turn in an abstract) to the graduate school. Oh, and I have a big honkin' recital about a month from now, though for some reason the stress and angst of that barely compares to what I experienced writing the project I turned in on Monday...in any case, I'm not quite at the finish line, but I think I can see it from here.

My mom was here for an entire week to help out with Daniel while I finished writing and revising the paper and editing the CD. I took her to a couple of our favorite crafty haunts. As an avid quilter, she claims Stitchers' Crossing is the best quilt shop out there, and last Friday we also went to Lakeside Fibers. If you've been reading Mad Knitting for a while, you may recall that I had a rather upsetting experience there in April, which resulted in a pissy letter from me and a half-assed apology and $10 gift certificate. Until Friday, I hadn't bought anything there since that unfortunately day. It wasn't so much that I harbored some deep resentment that I couldn't let go of; it had more to do with the fact that I have way too many projects going and no time to finish them, and buying yarn just felt ridiculous and would have made me feel guilty. And just to show you that I'm a forgiving person, I took a friend there over the summer and helped her choose yarn for a baby hat-shopping vicariously, I guess.

So anyway, I was there with my mom and I couldn't believe how NICE and FRIENDLY the employees were! And the women working were the same ones who treated me so rudely before. The owner also showed up and totally went out of her way to help me out and ask how I'm doing and somehow she knows I'm a doctoral student, and she wound my yarn for me before I got to the counter because there was a short waiting line. (Ahem, yes I bought something. I'll show you here in a minute.) I think the owner must remember who I am and that I'm the one who wrote the letter last spring, but I doubt the employees remember me; they were just acting as good employees in a yarn shop should. I'm curious to know how many people have complained about the snobbery in that place; maybe they have finally come around. Anyway, Lakeside is forgiven. They've got the best selection of any LYS I've been to in the Madison area and elsewhere, so it's hard to stay away forever.

For instance, they stock every color of Cascade 220. Every single one. I'm telling you this because I bought two skeins of it and started something new over the weekend:



Can you guess who it's for?

taking stock

Every so often I look through the yarn I have and the projects I've started, and I take stock. I usually end up asking myself a lot of questions like "What was I thinking when I started this?" and "Wow, there's a lot of yarn here. Maybe I should use some of it up?"

I thought maybe if I were to come clean here, it would help de-clutter the knitting part of my brain. You know, the part that's left after school stuff (dissertation and exit recital being the biggies there) and kid stuff and man-oh-man-what-should-I-fix-for-dinner-tonight? stuff. Besides, I've been having wicked insomnia lately and that "dissertation" area of my brain is pretty much burnt out at the moment.

Let's start with Projects That I Know I Will Never Finish for some reason or other. First up, a couple of sweaters:



The green blob is about 2/3 of the back of the "Aran Rose" pattern from the Spring '06 IK. This sweater just wasn't doing it for me, partly because the design is a little blah, and partly because the green doesn't suit me as well as I thought when I got the yarn (Patons Classic Merino -- at least it wasn't expensive.) This yarn is already being reclaimed for the endless sea of garter (a.k.a. child's tomten for Afghans for Afghans) I started last week. The purple thing on top is a baby sweater I started out of a random skein of Cascade 220, striped with gray leftover yarn from something my mom made (because I thought there wouldn't be enough purple). This was intended for AFA, but I didn't get it done to send with the baby blanket in May, so I put it down. In fact, I put it down where Daniel could reach, and I realized this project was doomed when he pulled out the needle, frogged a few rows, and looked up at me proudly, and I didn't mind one little bit.

Come to think of it, that green and purple look kind of cool together, don't they? Maybe I'll throw some purple stripes into the tomten to avoid going into a garter stitch coma.
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Next, a fuzzy wuzzy fern lace wrap out of Louisa Harding angora something-or-other in bright teal that I bought on impulse from Lakeside Fibers because it was on sale. I started knitting this at SongFest to keep my hands busy during those long masterclasses, but because I was concentrating on several things at once (the music, the teaching, the knitting), I kept messing up the pattern, even though it isn't hard.



I'm really having my doubts that this yarn works with any kind of lace pattern. It's just so damn fuzzy you can barely see what's happening. So I'm going to frog it and make something else. I have six skeins, which would be a substantial scarf. Anybody have suggestions? I'm thinking something light and airy but not at all complicated because the yarn is so textured.

Just three things headed for the frog pond? That's not so bad, after all. Of course, this isn't counting a couple (or few) stalled works-in-progress that I don't know if I'll finish by the time the intended recipients grow out of them. And my two most recently started projects - the tomten and Daniel's socks - are coming right along, slowly but steadily.

It probably wouldn't hurt to make some rules for myself. No casting on of a new project before another is finished is a good place to start. How about: Always have a charity hat or sock or mitten or blanket square on the needles to use up leftovers. And here's another good one: Make sure you really want to knit a project before you start it.

Ah, well. Rules and discipline are necessary in every other facet of my life. At least with knitting, it's no one's loss but mine if I'm a total scatterbrain. (That's even true for gift-knitting, by the way, unless you tell someone you're making them something before you actually make it, and I think it's very unwise to make that kind of a commitment. You can always surprise them--they don't need to know it took you 3 years to knit that sweater.)

black holes

It's a week of black holes for me, I'm afraid. I'm experiencing a dissertation black hole in which a significant amount of my time and energy are going into the paper, but nothing quality is coming out. (I think having a toddler and being pregnant and cooking dinner every night might have something to do with that, but I'd really rather blame the cosmos.)

And then, since these things come in pairs, this tomten I'm working on for Afghans for Afghans is a veritable black hole of garter stitch.



Sure, I'm using up more yarn, and it's not like I'm spending lots of hours per day working on it (see above re: dissertation), but this thing isn't getting any bigger. I laughed so patronizingly when I read the Yarn Harlot's section on black holes of knitting in her latest book, but now I realize she was utterly and completely right.

Now then. I haven't gotten any writing done today (other than blogging) and I have a recording session on Sunday that I desperately need to practice for, and my dear darling child is finally asleep and it's almost 4pm and all I really want to do is make chocolate cookies with walnuts.

ETA: I made those cookies, by gum, and they are sooooo delicious. As I was furiously beating the butter, I said to Stu, "This is a slight case of the prego- and dissertation-induced crazies." Recipe coming soon.

ETA once more: the recipe is posted here.