Domestic Bliss
It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting...
Sunday, June 25, 2006
I'm SO looking forward to Monday.
It's been a long week, with too much work and not enough knitting. This is my 48-hour week at work (I'm scheduled for 36 hours one week and 48 the next), and I was asked to pick up another shift as well. If I can make it through tonight, I'll have the next two days off. Alas, I won't get the full 60 hours since I had to leave three hours early on Friday due to a sudden case of what I strongly suspect was food poisoning. (Note to self: stop buying lunch in employee cafeteria and start packing healthy, non-illness-inducing food instead.) Fortunately, once the nastiness was out of my system, I recovered quickly and was able to go back to work the next day.
I was lying in bed with my tummy hurting and thinking how nice it would be to put my hot water bottle on it. Then I remembered that my lovely new cashmere-blend bottle cover is not machine washable, and I wasn't willing to risk tossing my cookies anywhere near it. (Many, many cookies were tossed that night.) So now I have an excuse to knit another cover in something washable - I may have enough Microspun left over from the cabled scarf.
I'm feeling much better now, although it feels like I've strained every muscle in my back and abdomen. Laughing and coughing are rather painful at the moment.
My darling husband had a very productive day yesterday; in addition to grocery shopping and washing dishes, he made it to the Post Office and got my Dulaan Project package sent off. (Their deadline is this Saturday, but the project is being continued, so anything that doesn't reach them in time will be sent next year.) I ended up sending my Kool-Aid sweater, three pairs of baby socks, and a hat I made for Syntax which he didn't like because he thought it was too warm - we decided that it would be appreciated much more by someone in a colder climate. I was especially pleased with the pink and purple socks; they actually ended up being identical twins! The others are close fraternals, which is fine. Being off by half a row can make all the difference on a sock this small.
I'm trying to choose another charity to knit for now that Dulaan is done for the year. I'm considering Children in Common, but I would really welcome suggestions for other worthy causes, so please comment or e-mail me if you know of a good one.
I'm SO looking forward to Monday.
It's been a long week, with too much work and not enough knitting. This is my 48-hour week at work (I'm scheduled for 36 hours one week and 48 the next), and I was asked to pick up another shift as well. If I can make it through tonight, I'll have the next two days off. Alas, I won't get the full 60 hours since I had to leave three hours early on Friday due to a sudden case of what I strongly suspect was food poisoning. (Note to self: stop buying lunch in employee cafeteria and start packing healthy, non-illness-inducing food instead.) Fortunately, once the nastiness was out of my system, I recovered quickly and was able to go back to work the next day.I was lying in bed with my tummy hurting and thinking how nice it would be to put my hot water bottle on it. Then I remembered that my lovely new cashmere-blend bottle cover is not machine washable, and I wasn't willing to risk tossing my cookies anywhere near it. (Many, many cookies were tossed that night.) So now I have an excuse to knit another cover in something washable - I may have enough Microspun left over from the cabled scarf.
I'm feeling much better now, although it feels like I've strained every muscle in my back and abdomen. Laughing and coughing are rather painful at the moment.My darling husband had a very productive day yesterday; in addition to grocery shopping and washing dishes, he made it to the Post Office and got my Dulaan Project package sent off. (Their deadline is this Saturday, but the project is being continued, so anything that doesn't reach them in time will be sent next year.) I ended up sending my Kool-Aid sweater, three pairs of baby socks, and a hat I made for Syntax which he didn't like because he thought it was too warm - we decided that it would be appreciated much more by someone in a colder climate. I was especially pleased with the pink and purple socks; they actually ended up being identical twins! The others are close fraternals, which is fine. Being off by half a row can make all the difference on a sock this small.
I'm trying to choose another charity to knit for now that Dulaan is done for the year. I'm considering Children in Common, but I would really welcome suggestions for other worthy causes, so please comment or e-mail me if you know of a good one.
::Posted by Bliss at 5:07 PM ::
(3 comments) ::
Monday, June 19, 2006
One more for the FO pile.
Finally finished my Kool-Aid sweater early this morning. I don't know why it took me so long; the front, back, and neck were finished and sewn together, but I procrastinated on setting in the sleeves and sewing up the sides. No matter, it's done now. I really like the way the color variation turned out, with the little bits of darker color scattered through out the sweater. I ended up having two extra balls of yarn, which I'll probably use for a hat or two.
(I just realized that this picture makes it look very lumpy on the sleeves. I think that's just the way I had it folded to make it easier to photograph.)
As promised, I now have my hot water bottle cover pattern available as a .pdf file! Special thanks go to Dani for her help on that. Eventually I'll make a button for it and put it in the sidebar, but for now you can get it here:
One more for the FO pile.
Finally finished my Kool-Aid sweater early this morning. I don't know why it took me so long; the front, back, and neck were finished and sewn together, but I procrastinated on setting in the sleeves and sewing up the sides. No matter, it's done now. I really like the way the color variation turned out, with the little bits of darker color scattered through out the sweater. I ended up having two extra balls of yarn, which I'll probably use for a hat or two.
(I just realized that this picture makes it look very lumpy on the sleeves. I think that's just the way I had it folded to make it easier to photograph.)
As promised, I now have my hot water bottle cover pattern available as a .pdf file! Special thanks go to Dani for her help on that. Eventually I'll make a button for it and put it in the sidebar, but for now you can get it here:
::Posted by Bliss at 3:33 PM ::
(2 comments) ::
Sunday, June 18, 2006
"It's a major award!"
It's been a good weekend here at DB...
Last night, Blog Asheville celebrated its first year (hard to believe!) with Extravablogiversapaloozathon 2006, held at Edgy Mama & EnviroSpouse's lovely home. Good band, good food, lots o' beer, and prizes! (Check out the 9th one on the list. Ahem.) I am honored (and astonished!) to know that y'all are reading. We had a fantastic time, and I hope we'll all be around to do it again next year.
Also, winners were announced today for the first challenge of The Amazing Lace, and my entry placed third. (Yeah, it was a distant third, but who cares? Third place, baby!) Thank you to everyone who voted for me, and congratulations to the first and second place winners Knitabulous and Christie, who both had fabulous entries which you should go read.
"It's a major award!"
It's been a good weekend here at DB...Last night, Blog Asheville celebrated its first year (hard to believe!) with Extravablogiversapaloozathon 2006, held at Edgy Mama & EnviroSpouse's lovely home. Good band, good food, lots o' beer, and prizes! (Check out the 9th one on the list. Ahem.) I am honored (and astonished!) to know that y'all are reading. We had a fantastic time, and I hope we'll all be around to do it again next year.
Also, winners were announced today for the first challenge of The Amazing Lace, and my entry placed third. (Yeah, it was a distant third, but who cares? Third place, baby!) Thank you to everyone who voted for me, and congratulations to the first and second place winners Knitabulous and Christie, who both had fabulous entries which you should go read.
::Posted by Bliss at 10:40 PM ::
(4 comments) ::
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Free pattern!
(By the way - as of right now I am in 3rd place in The Amazing Lace challenge! The poll is open until midnight tonight if you'd still like to vote.)
Free pattern!
I've written out the pattern for my hot water bottle cover; you can access it with the link below. Right now, it's a Word document, so if it asks what program you want to use to open it, select Word or another word processing program. Eventually I hope to have this as a .pdf file, but I'm not set up to do that yet.
I would really appreciate any feedback on this; it's the first time I've written a pattern so if there is anything confusing or that seems wrong, please let me know. (The pattern assumes that you know how to do a provisional cast-on and how to make i-cord, but I put detailed instructions for the short rows.)
(By the way - as of right now I am in 3rd place in The Amazing Lace challenge! The poll is open until midnight tonight if you'd still like to vote.)
::Posted by Bliss at 6:09 PM ::
(3 comments) ::
Monday, June 12, 2006
A finalist is me!
(For those of you who don't recognize the reference in the title, go play Kingdom of Loathing. It's fun.)
I am ecstatic! Yesterday I learned that I was a finalist in the first challenge of The Amazing Lace! That link will take you to the page where you can vote (if you are so inclined) for "Bliss' bowling night."
(I realize I am not going to win this challenge. There are two entries duking it out now. But I would really love to have a respectable showing, and I would greatly appreciate your vote.)
Yesterday I also finished a project I've been working on for a few days. It's a hot water bottle cover made of luxury yarn. (And I think it's just about the girliest thing I've ever made.) Really, it was an excuse to make something from Ambrosia. I can't afford to buy enough of it to make a whole sweater right now, but I wanted something I could cuddle up with. I had originally thought that a hot water bottle cover would be a great canvas to show off some fancy cable work, but I reconsidered when I realized that cables would make it less cuddly. So I added the ruffle to keep it from looking too plain.
I showed it to three friends yesterday, and every one of them had the same reaction: they each picked it up, realized how soft it was, and held it to their chests like they were soothing a baby. Hee.
I'm particularly pleased with the construction. It's completely seamless, and I used short rows on the bottom to get the curved edge. I put in some yarn-overs where the bottle narrowed at the neck, and knit i-cord for the drawstring. The ruffle was super easy; it just involves knitting into the front and back of each stitch (doubling the number of stitches) for two rows. I might have done more, but going from 70 stitches to 140 stitches to 280 stitches was quite enough to bind off, thank you very much. I'm planning to write this pattern out and post it, if anyone else would like to make one.
A finalist is me!
(For those of you who don't recognize the reference in the title, go play Kingdom of Loathing. It's fun.)
I am ecstatic! Yesterday I learned that I was a finalist in the first challenge of The Amazing Lace! That link will take you to the page where you can vote (if you are so inclined) for "Bliss' bowling night."
(I realize I am not going to win this challenge. There are two entries duking it out now. But I would really love to have a respectable showing, and I would greatly appreciate your vote.)
Yesterday I also finished a project I've been working on for a few days. It's a hot water bottle cover made of luxury yarn. (And I think it's just about the girliest thing I've ever made.) Really, it was an excuse to make something from Ambrosia. I can't afford to buy enough of it to make a whole sweater right now, but I wanted something I could cuddle up with. I had originally thought that a hot water bottle cover would be a great canvas to show off some fancy cable work, but I reconsidered when I realized that cables would make it less cuddly. So I added the ruffle to keep it from looking too plain.I showed it to three friends yesterday, and every one of them had the same reaction: they each picked it up, realized how soft it was, and held it to their chests like they were soothing a baby. Hee.
I'm particularly pleased with the construction. It's completely seamless, and I used short rows on the bottom to get the curved edge. I put in some yarn-overs where the bottle narrowed at the neck, and knit i-cord for the drawstring. The ruffle was super easy; it just involves knitting into the front and back of each stitch (doubling the number of stitches) for two rows. I might have done more, but going from 70 stitches to 140 stitches to 280 stitches was quite enough to bind off, thank you very much. I'm planning to write this pattern out and post it, if anyone else would like to make one.
::Posted by Bliss at 6:34 PM ::
(5 comments) ::
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Stash enhancement.
Look what came in the mail from Canada!
Stash enhancement.
Look what came in the mail from Canada!
That's 32 (!) one-ounce skeins of wool I bought for a song on eBay. It's not the color I thought it would be; in the listing photo it looked like bright pink, but it's actually a light cranberry, which is fine - it's a nice color. It's also finer than I was expecting; I was picturing something along the lines of a sport weight, but this is more like a sock yarn. I'm sure I'll find a good use for it.
Finally finished my Soy Socks:
They're very comfy, but thicker than regular socks. I'll probably wear them with my bowling shoes, which are a little big. (You might notice that on my progress bars, these are shown as being 103% complete. That's because stupid me didn't notice until I was almost done that I hadn't centered my toe decreases, so I had to rip out 15 rows and do the whole toe over. Duh.)
Today is my husband's birthday (Hi Honey, I kiss you MWAH), so we drove to Greenville for dinner. Turns out they've just opened a Whole Foods next door to the restaurant, so we checked it out. Wow - that has to be the most beautiful produce section I've ever seen! They really put a lot of thought into the layout. We didn't buy much since we had a long drive back, but we picked up a few nonperishables. I rarely drink regular soda, but I did pick up some natural soda that's actually made with sugar instead of corn syrup. Mmmmmm, cherry vanilla creme.
::Posted by Bliss at 11:49 PM ::
(2 comments) ::
Sunday, June 04, 2006
The Amazing Lace Challenge #1: Meet the Team.
Meet Team DB!
(Left)
Name: Bliss
Age: 36
Height: 5' 4"
Hometown: Asheville, NC
(Right)
Name: Dainty Bess
Age: 5 weeks
Height: 2' 4"
Hometown: Savannah, GA
At right, the official team photo of Team DB, in their matching t-shirts.
Bliss and Dainty Bess have been teammates ever since they met in a yarn shop in Savannah,
where Bliss and her husband were spending a weekend celebrating their first wedding anniversary. "I knew as soon as I saw that ball of blueberry Zephyr yarn that we could really create something special together," says Bliss.
Since that day, Dainty Bess has grown to over two feet, and is expected to eventually reach somewhere between five and six feet long.
Bliss and Bess enjoy taking trips and doing activities together. "I knit in public a lot, and that has given me more time to spend working on Bess. It's getting to the point where we get recognized around town." Adds Bess, "A lot of scarves don't get to travel much until they're finished. I feel lucky that I get to see a bit of the world while I'm still in progress." Bess is one tough cookie, as you can see by the back of her t-shirt in the photo above!
Team DB allowed our staff to tag along on one of their recent outings to the local bowling alley.
The Amazing Lace Challenge #1: Meet the Team.
Meet Team DB!(Left)
Name: Bliss
Age: 36
Height: 5' 4"
Hometown: Asheville, NC
(Right)
Name: Dainty Bess
Age: 5 weeks
Height: 2' 4"
Hometown: Savannah, GA
At right, the official team photo of Team DB, in their matching t-shirts.
Bliss and Dainty Bess have been teammates ever since they met in a yarn shop in Savannah,
where Bliss and her husband were spending a weekend celebrating their first wedding anniversary. "I knew as soon as I saw that ball of blueberry Zephyr yarn that we could really create something special together," says Bliss.Since that day, Dainty Bess has grown to over two feet, and is expected to eventually reach somewhere between five and six feet long.
Bliss and Bess enjoy taking trips and doing activities together. "I knit in public a lot, and that has given me more time to spend working on Bess. It's getting to the point where we get recognized around town." Adds Bess, "A lot of scarves don't get to travel much until they're finished. I feel lucky that I get to see a bit of the world while I'm still in progress." Bess is one tough cookie, as you can see by the back of her t-shirt in the photo above!
Team DB allowed our staff to tag along on one of their recent outings to the local bowling alley.
Here they are in their official team vehicle, getting ready to go. "Bess would love to drive, but she's not quite long enough to reach the pedals yet. Maybe by the end of the summer she'll be ready to take over!"
The team makes a quick stop to fill up the car. Dainty Bess insists on pumping the gas herself.
Game on! Bliss bowls her first frame, while Bess checks out the electronic scoreboard.
Looks like Dainty Bess is up!
After the 5th frame, Bess takes a beer break.
Game over! Dainty Bess edges out Bliss by 10 points.
Bliss buys Dainty Bess another beer. (Hey, it's not like she's the one driving home!)
Good game, Bess!
Watch this space for more challenges from The Amazing Lace!
::Posted by Bliss at 11:16 PM ::
(10 comments) ::
Friday, June 02, 2006
The Itchy & Scratchy Show.
Last Tuesday I had an appointment at the allergy clinic. My employer has decided that in addition to my own job and the two other jobs I have to cover that I will be trained in yet another position which involves working in an environment with lots o' nasty stuff, including nickel sulfate. Now, I was 99% sure I'm allergic to nickel, but the boss wanted evidence, so I've spent the last three days wearing two large adhesive patches on my back. (I was warned not to let them get wet, hence no showering. Syntax helped me wash my hair yesterday and the process involved a garbage bag with a hole cut out for my head. Fun!)
The patches were removed this morning (thank Jeebus - the itching was driving me nuts). The bad news is that I am definitely allergic to nickel, and I have a giant red welt on my back to prove it. The good news is that I am not allergic to thimerisol, formaldehyde, potassium dichromate, Balsam of Peru, or any of the other nineteen allergens they tested on me. Actually, I was kind of hoping I would react to the B. of P., since I know I'm allergic to several brands of sunscreen and that is a common ingredient, but apparently it's something else in the sunscreen that gives me itchy red hives.
Today was a darned good day overall. In addition to getting my patches removed, I got a package from Knit One, Crochet Too with a new ball of Wick, as promised. Plus, they sent me one of these - the "knitter's water bottle." It's very cute and will come in handy.
While we were out this evening, we discovered a new store in West Asheville called Euromarket. It's a tiny little grocery store that carries mostly Russian foods. We used to shop at the Ukranian grocery in Candler all the time, and I was so disappointed when it closed. I'm glad this new place is here. Asheville has a growing Russian/Ukranian community and it seems like there should be more of these stores in that part of town.
I don't speak Russian, but I am familiar enough with the alphabet that I can sometimes figure out what a word is by sounding it out. For instance, the can on the far right says "Cream Soda." We bought a bag of bulk candy, but I can't tell what flavors any of them are unless there's a picture of a fruit on the label. We'll just have to try them and make a list of the good ones so we can buy them again.
The Itchy & Scratchy Show.
Last Tuesday I had an appointment at the allergy clinic. My employer has decided that in addition to my own job and the two other jobs I have to cover that I will be trained in yet another position which involves working in an environment with lots o' nasty stuff, including nickel sulfate. Now, I was 99% sure I'm allergic to nickel, but the boss wanted evidence, so I've spent the last three days wearing two large adhesive patches on my back. (I was warned not to let them get wet, hence no showering. Syntax helped me wash my hair yesterday and the process involved a garbage bag with a hole cut out for my head. Fun!)
The patches were removed this morning (thank Jeebus - the itching was driving me nuts). The bad news is that I am definitely allergic to nickel, and I have a giant red welt on my back to prove it. The good news is that I am not allergic to thimerisol, formaldehyde, potassium dichromate, Balsam of Peru, or any of the other nineteen allergens they tested on me. Actually, I was kind of hoping I would react to the B. of P., since I know I'm allergic to several brands of sunscreen and that is a common ingredient, but apparently it's something else in the sunscreen that gives me itchy red hives.
Today was a darned good day overall. In addition to getting my patches removed, I got a package from Knit One, Crochet Too with a new ball of Wick, as promised. Plus, they sent me one of these - the "knitter's water bottle." It's very cute and will come in handy.
While we were out this evening, we discovered a new store in West Asheville called Euromarket. It's a tiny little grocery store that carries mostly Russian foods. We used to shop at the Ukranian grocery in Candler all the time, and I was so disappointed when it closed. I'm glad this new place is here. Asheville has a growing Russian/Ukranian community and it seems like there should be more of these stores in that part of town.
I don't speak Russian, but I am familiar enough with the alphabet that I can sometimes figure out what a word is by sounding it out. For instance, the can on the far right says "Cream Soda." We bought a bag of bulk candy, but I can't tell what flavors any of them are unless there's a picture of a fruit on the label. We'll just have to try them and make a list of the good ones so we can buy them again.
::Posted by Bliss at 9:43 PM ::
(0 comments) ::
