Joined
I joined the Lucky knitalong after all. I was personally invited, dontcha know. Can’t turn down hospitality like that!
Not that I’ve made much progress since I started…I’ve only knit about 5 or 6 inches up the back.
More House Stuff
Even though closing on our new house isn’t until June 15th, we’ve managed to get almost everything taken care of ahead of time. I got that letter from State Farm so we were able to lock in a really excellent quote from our insurance company…it’s all lined up to take effect on closing. Big relief.
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A Bad Neighbour
State Farm sucks my ass.
My parents have insured their home and their cars with State Farm. When Jeremy and I bought our Toyota last fall we had the option of being insured under my parents’ policy or creating our own insurance history. We’re grown-ups now, so we opted for the latter. We found a broker who was willing to give a young couple a chance and a discount with proof of past experience. If you read my other site at the time you’d remember how fucking pissed off I was that it took me 2 weeks to get them to send me proof that I had not made any claims while being insured by State Farm. Well, we’re playing that game again, only this time it’s with my parents’ homeowners insurance policy.
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House Update
We have a house! Since I last mentioned anything, we fell in love with a house, made an offer, agreed to a bunch of conditions and then stressed it out as we waited for the conditions to be met.
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Would You Like Some SPAM With That Cashmere?
In the inbox today:
From: Nandia Cashmere
Subject: Cashmere Knitting Yarn Link
We run online business that sells cashmere yarn for knitters, weavers and machine knitters. During our market research, we came across your web site and found the content of your web site to be very interesting and useful.We have very attractive affiliate program that can help you generate income from your existing online traffic. We also offer free gifts ($30 value) for webmasters who decided to sign up our affiliate program or decided to place a Nandia Cashmere on their web sites. Please reply to this e-mail or visit our affiliate page for more information.
From: Maggie
Subject: RE: Cashmere Knitting Yarn Link
Any business you may have had from me was lost the second you sent spam to my account. Your business practices can hardly be satisfactory or trustworthy if you spam for customers.Remove me from any mailing list you mistakenly think I should be part of.
From: Nandia Cashmere
Subject: RE: Cashmere Knitting Yarn Link
According to our records, we never sent you any Spam. Our privacy policy states that we have the right to send you occasional promotional newsletters. However, you always had an option to unsubscribe it by just clicking a link that we provided.
First they say they got my email addy from my website, then they say their email isn’t spam because I asked for it.
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Whoops
I changed my incoming email sound to Cartman from South Park saying, “Screw you, hippy!” and now I have a heart attack every 5 minutes. I’m home alone and every email scares me to death.
I’m determined to get used to it.
Beaded Stitch Markers
My sister Natalie has been beading for a couple of years and last night she gave me a couple of lessons and I made these stitch markers. I’ve never been interested in beaded stitch markers before and I always thought the weight of them would interfere with my knitting. As it turns out, their weight is what makes them so nice to use. And they’re beautiful.
Couldn’t Help It
I’m a chronic starter and I can’t seem to help it. Yesterday I swatched, washed, blocked and cast on with the Cotton Fleece for the cardigan I mentioned I’m designing. I’m calling it Cotton Candy.
I decided on a picot hem, my first attempt, accomplished with a little help from Nancie Wiseman. Want to see the back?
I also bought a couple of patterns today. Bonne Marie’s Scoop du Jour just looked so crisp and fresh. Also, that is one fabulous scoop neck. I’m more interested in seeing her construction of that neckline than I am about knitting the entire cardi. I’m going to have to rework the whole thing anyway since her sizing tends to be on the small side, so by the end of that experience I should have assimilated the ability to create a perfectly smooth scoop neck.
I also bought Rogue. This isn’t on the agenda until early fall, but I really wanted to read through the pattern so I bought it now.
Just Tuesday
This morning was my yearly at the doctor where I get to do all kinds of fun stuff. I am in good general health. I talked with my doctor about my failed attempt to quit smoking. She talked to me about my weight.
It’s not like I can’t look in a mirror or get on a scale to see what size I am, nor do I pretend not to understand why my feet hurt or why I can’t take stairs two-at-a-time anymore. I’m overweight. Today my doctor told me she was more concerned about my weight than my smoking. This scares me. My doctor has always pleaded with me to quit or at least cut down as much as I can. She’s also always addressed my weight as something I need to attend. But has my weight finally reached a range where my doctor is telling me that I have to do something about it RIGHT NOW? Oh, man. I can handle being fat. I can’t handle being unhealthy because I’m fat. I need to think about what I’m doing, here.
I’ve been wearing Mariah all the time since I finished it. It’s weird because even though I’ve never had this sweater in my inventory before, suddenly I have nothing else to wear. I’m going to need another one. I’m going to design myself a cardigan based very loosely on Mariah (raglan, cabled sleeves, zipper) out of Cotton Fleece and swatch for that this afternoon.
Lucky is coming along nicely. I’m almost to the waistline on the back piece. Clapotis has been put on hold indefinitely. The second sock from my Cherry Tree Hill yarn is inexplicably pooling. The yarn is from the same skein as the first sock, and I think the pooling is because I may have started knitting with a different number of stitches. I’ll have to check. If that’s the case, I’m going to start over again.
Scarborough Stitch ‘N Bitch tonight, should be fun. I didn’t make it last time because of the house-hunting so I’ve been looking forward to tonight.
Speaking of house-hunting, I have news to spill next post.
Mariah is Finished!
The sweater is done. The hood is done. The hood is not great but it looks fine hanging down my back, so that’s okay. I don’t have a completed picture for you right now - I’ll get one when Jeremy gets home from work. It’s really nice with a pair of jeans and a white tank top underneath.
I love the sweater…it’s probably the first sweater I’ve made for myself that I’ll wear regularly. But as with every other sweater I’ve made for myself, I’ve used the wrong yarn. Let’s sum up, shall we?
Ah, Banff. My first completed adult-sized sweater. It’s beautiful and it should be, I practically knit it 3 times to get it right. My first lesson in gauge. My first lesson in scratchy wool. I knit this using Alafoss Lopi and I’m so sorry. The sweater is really warm and it has become my drive-in sweater. At the beginning and end of the drive-in movie season, it gets damn cold. This sweater over another sweater under my coat keeps me very warm and comfortable, except for the horrible, horrible itchiness around my neck and wrists. I could not bear to wear it without a heavy top underneath because the wool is so scruff it feels like a coarse-hair shirt and I’m being punished for my sins against God.
Here we have the Everyday Cardigan from Peace Fleece. It’s beautiful and it turned out really nicely. Peace Fleece is the recommended yarn, obviously, since it’s their pattern, but I would love this cardigan so much more if the wool was softer to wear against the skin. The cardigan has also grown a lot because I didn’t do a finished gauge swatch, so I had no idea my 4 sts/1″ was going to change into 3.75 sts/1″. The cardigan is now way too wide. I love the Peace Fleece, don’t get me wrong. It’s that I planned to wear the cardi with t-shirts and it’s really uncomfortable that way. I guess Peace Fleece will now be reserved for strictly outerwear projects, like coats.
Here’s Mariah with the zipper pinned. Since I’ve finished it, I’ve worn it twice: all day Saturday and for a few hours last night. As you may or may not know, I knit it with Elann’s Peruvian Highland Wool. As you may or may not know, I hated every second of knitting with the yarn. As you may have heard, this yarn is infamous for pilling. My sweater already looks like it was knit 10 years ago. Gah. I guess I’ll have to get a sweater stone and try to keep on top of it. I still have a bunch of this yarn in a different colour and I’m debating whether I want to knit a simple pullover in a much tighter gauge or just keep it in the stash and use it for felting. Meh.
