Care Package!

In spite of everything, I did manage to get one good photo at the Celtic Festival of my sister and daughter. I think that's Holly's Cristmas present camera Lynn's looking at.



Yesterday, the care package from Knit Picks arrived. If I had known what my financial situation this month would be, I never would have sent for it.

I have to say, though, that it really made me happier to get it.

Let me tell you about what I got!

First, there's a size one (2.5 mm), nickel-plated, 40 inch circular needle. You can see it in the photo with a partially-knit sock on it. I have one of these in a 47 inch length from Addi (one of their lace needles). I loved the Addi lace needles because I liked their points, which were copied from the old Baleen needles. They make regular needles feel big and clumsy to knit with. Until I tried the needles from Knit Picks. They make the Addi lace needles seem big and clumsy. I can do the K2 togs, and the SSKs so much more easily and quickly on the new needles! Knit Picks recommends a 32 inch circular needle for socks because their needles are so flexible. I think that 32 inches would be short enough to make extra work for me. But the 40 inch needles  eliminated enough extra length that they are no longer catching on things and making problems, while still being long enough to use them easily. In short, I love them! And, I like the nickel finish so much better than the ugly plastic-coated brass, and the purple connector is also nicer than the red ones on the Addis. And they're only $5 as opposed to close to the $20 mark.

While we're on the subject of needles, there is one of their Options circular needles curled around the sock-in-progress in the photo. It's made of size eight tips with a 24 inch connector. And now that I have them, I'm thinking about all the projects that the Options needles will make easier.

I've been thinking about getting a set of Options needles for a while. I have a set of Denise needles, though, and although there are some wonderful things I like about them, there are also some things I'm really not happy with.

I like that they've never been banned from aircraft. You can take your knitting on a plane with relative confidence. If knitting circularly, you can put the size needle you need for knitting on your right-hand side, and use a size smaller on the left so that it's easier to advance the stitches onto that needle. Every once in a while (actually, often), there is a project that just doesn't want to slide up onto the left-hand needle. Well, now you can fix that! Then again, you can go further and make condo needles out of the components. Condo needles have a big needle tip on one end, and a smaller one on the other tip. They're used when knitting back-and-forth to make interesting effects with certain stitch patterns. And Denise needles have the sharp points that I like so much. Sharp points make decreases, lace and cables so much easier to do.

But Denise needle tips are short! There is not enough in your hand to control them easily. You don't notice it at first, except for a bit of awkwardness, but your hands tell you about it later.

I have put off buying the Options needles because I was afraid they'd be too short. But they're not! Knit Picks, in it's wisdom, made them 4.5 inches long instead of 4 inches. That doesn't sound like much, but it makes all the difference. When you add the connection, the whole needle tip is 5 inches long, precisely.

And the Options tips are sharp, just the way I like them.

In a couple of days, when I feel better, I'll be going through everything I own to try to find unneeded possessions to sell on Craig's List. With any luck, maybe I can raise enough to offset the money the IRS took out of this month's income, my sudden medical costs, and maybe even enough to get a set of Options needles!

I live in hope.

Now that we've covered the left side of the photo, let's move to the middle, where you see a ball of Telemark sport-weight wool in Royal Heather. See how light it looks in their photo? See how dark it looks in my photo? I was hoping that it would actually be a little lighter than it appeared on screen. It was actually darker. I made a pretty shawl in a lavender yarn, which went to a friend, and I liked it so much that I wanted to duplicate it, only in wool rather than the acrylic it was in. So I'm reassessing things.

When I was born, my mom had a name picked out for me. But when I arrived, she decided that I didn't look like that should be my name, so she named me Johann. Well, this yarn is like that. It looked like a pretty lavender shawl in the photo (to me), but now that it's arrived, it looks like a vest for me. So, now I have to design a vest. I have lots of ideas, but some of the cables and things I'd like to do wouldn't show up well in this color. But maybe a general texture would work well.

More thinking is needed.

On the right-hand side of the photo, we have the Risata yarn in Marionberry. It's very pretty, but it's much darker than I expected, too. Comparable to a navy color in blue, but purple.

I hadn't decided what pattern I wanted to use for this, but I was leaning toward the horcrux socks. This shade is dark enough that I don't feel that the horcrux socks would be shown to their best advantage. So, I'm still thinking about what pattern to use. Suggestions are welcome. Lace might be nice. Or not.

Photography stuff real soon, now.

Have a great Tuesday!

Still Here!

I am so much better than last week!

I still have a sore throat and earache, but I can breath (most of the time) with my mouth shut and without breaking into a string of coughing. The literature with the medicine kept talking about how I would feel OK almost immediately, and that I shouldn't stop taking the medicine because I feel OK. I think I'm going to get to the end of the medicine before the OK part. I'm supposed to go back to the doctor for a check-up, to make sure that it's really gone, but I can't afford that. I may try to see if I can get more of the prescription by calling the office, but I don't know how I'm going to buy it unless I skip paying the phone bill. Or eating.

They Live was on TV today, on one of the Encore channels. Check your local listings. If they run it once, that means it'll probably be on a few more times sometime soon. The movie applies more and more to what's happening in the United States these days. The economy is collapsing, and all the money is going to a group of rich elites who turn out to be aliens (come on, this is a science fiction movie!). Whereas in real life, it's just a bunch of humans who act like aliens. It's a great movie! Don't miss it!

There are at least five other great things coming up on TV that I wanted to tell you about, but I'm too muddled by this group of infections to remember them. I'll have to take notes for tomorrow.

I thought I'd get the instructions for the Horcrux Socks. They say you have to sign up with some group in order to get the pattern (which is free), but you have to give out all sorts of information about yourself, and also (it transpired) write an essay about your skills as a knitter, current projects, etc. Apparently they're very picky about who they give patterns to.

I like the basic design of the horcrux socks, but I can already see lots of stuff that I'd rather do differently, so I may just write my own pattern for them.

But the essay I wrote reminded me that I've made some scrunchy socks, and I haven't put up a pattern for them. I'll have to do that when my body stops trying to leak out of most orifices.

Holly and I went out yesterday so I could do some basic shopping. Then we went to Chilis restaurant. 

She was telling me about the Sex in the City movie, which she loved, loved, LOVED! She threw in lots of spoilers, which I won't repeat here.

She said her sister didn't like the new Indiana Jones movie. Apparently, the ending wasn't archeological enough for her.

Holly and I got into discussing the crystal skull mythology, and went on to discuss how recently some archeological discoveries have been made (notably, the iridium layer at the KT boundary), and how that has changed the way people view the world. We wandered through the show, Cosmos (because it was on TV yesterday, and was pertinent to the discussion of scientific censure, specifically in relation to Immanuel Velikovsky). Carl Sagan felt called upon to ridicule Velikovsky because his theories didn't catch on with the scientific community. When I first saw Cosmos, he felt it necessary to add this (without reason, in my opinion) to the show. I saw the show again later (after Sagan had been ridiculed for his nuclear winter theory) and the part that mentioned Velikovsky had Sagan saying how sad it was that closed-minded scientists had chosen to denigrate him.

I told her about two really wonderful and fascinating books by him (Worlds in Collision, and Ages in Chaos) that have garnered a lot of censure from the scientific community. I had forgotten at the time about his other book, Earth in Upheaval. I think I was actually thinking of Earth in Upheaval rather than Ages in Chaos, though. I read them when I was 12 or 13 years old, during the portion of the summer before Mom lost her temper, took away my library card, pointed at the front door and yelled "Go outside and play!"

We had a lot of fun!

The Weather Pixie is once more under the weather, and I hope to see her back here soon.

I keep promising to tell you more about photography, but this being sick thing is taking up all my time and brain-power at the moment. I haven't forgotten the photographers out there, but I'm really not up to writing about anything coherently at the moment, so I will do it ASAP. Sorry.

Have a great Monday!

Test Pattern

This is sort of a test pattern, just to show I'm here.

I am feeling much better than yesterday, but that isn't saying much.

I'll probably have something brilliant and scintillating to say tomorrow.

In the meantime, I sent for some sock yarn (Risata in Marionberry) Wednesday, before I knew the extent of my poverty this month, and I'm looking for a good sock pattern. Something with a bit of lace or pointelle for Summer. Any ideas or suggestions will be appreciated. So far, the front runner in the pattern department seems to be the Horcrux Socks, although I really love the Standing in the Shadow of Love pattern. I only bought one color of sock yarn, though, so that'll have to wait for another day.

Have a great weekend!