Month: January 2003 Page 3 of 4

I’ve had to rip out everything I’ve knitted this week, for one reason or another. As I said earlier, I had to rip out the heel of Mom’s sock. And now, even though I had swatched the sweater vest, the guage is still not right. I’m not enjoying the yarn I chose too much either. Maybe subconsciously, I don’t want a sweater vest made out of this yarn? Maybe it wan’t to be something else. Hm, that’s a positive spin to all this. Martin calls me a Pollyanna.

In any case, I’m going to take a short hiatus from knitting and do some spinning. The guild is doing more cardboard weaving this week, so that will be good. I also need to finish spinning up the churro fleece for the guild joint rug project. So spinning it is. Perhaps I can perfect the navajo ply this week. Yes, I’ve done it once, successfully. But once does not make one proficient. It may mean that I merely got lucky. And to put some extra pressure on myself, I’m going to use some of that luscious Lorna’s Laces rovings I bought before Christmas.

Being On Call

18 hours into it, and it hasn’t been too bad. The pager has only gone off once. But since the page came through during the work day yesterday, it doesn’t really count. (If you don’t count the one that Martin sent me at 12:02PM that said “tick, tick, tick … you’re on call now”)

The downside of the weekend is that I’ve been fighting fires at work all week, and have stacked up a whole list of projects that “I can do this over the weekend, since I’m going to be on-call anyway…” Sigh. Now I have to spend the entire weekend in front of the computer whether the pager goes off or not.

Is there such a term? Frog In Public or Rip In Public? I turned the heel (short-row) on my Mom sock today while I was baby-sitting a software re-install on my laptop. Somewhere around the “Press here if you really, really, really want to do this…” I must have done something weird because my working stitches were no longer centered on the heel. I had one extra wrapped stitch on one side. Yes, it was really an extra stitch, because they never evened up, and while working one edge, I was off by 2 stitches.

Anyway, I ripped it out on the bus ride home. I had some strange looks but no one asked why I was gaining unknitted yarn.

So, no net gain on Mom’s socks.

I started another sweater vest last night. This time it’s for me. It’s always too cold in my office and my back locks up from being hunched up in front of the computer without moving for hours at a time. It was with a yarn that I purchased for another project (a shawl), but I didn’t like the way the swatch worked up. I decided that it would be better as a vest than an shawl. I would have just enough yarn if I make it a hip length vest. To make it more boxy, I decided to to a seed stitch edging instead of the standard rib.

Anyway, I left it on the couch last night when I went to bed. Baad idea. I woke up this morning to a rats nest of yarn in the middle of the living room, with a very smug looking kitty next to it. It was all wrapped up around the legs of the TV stand. No wonder we heard all those victory cries last night with the thunder kitty activity!

It reminded me of the weekend eons ago that I went to visit Martin at school for the weekend (200 miles away). I came home and my apartment looked like that scene from the original Parent Trap movie. You know, the scene in the cabin after one of the twins strung yarn and honey all over the place. Except all my yarn was about 1-2″ off the ground, and wound around every chair and table leg in my tiny apartment. It took me forever to trace the yarn around all the furniture and rewind it. Mostly because I had to keep stopping to catch my breath from laughing so hard.

Then there was the weekend that she answered my phone for me while I was out of town. I got the strangest phone call from one of the ladies that I do volunteer work with …

Her: “um, do you have a cat?”
Me: “yes”
Her: “um, do you have her on your answering machine?”
Me: “er, no. Why do you ask? Are you sure you got the right number? I didn’t have any messages on my answering machine.”

Apparently, Izzy knocked the phone off the hook when it ran and started talking into the phone! The little girls (not so little now, since they are in college!), who were looking after her, saw the phone off the hook, and put the phone back, so I never realized what happened until that lady called me.

Gawd, I miss Izzy. She was the best cat. (Don’t let the 3 I have now hear that or they’ll never speak to me again.)

Anyway. I want to know when you all have time for all the blogging and knitting *and* fit work, food, and sleep in there. I’m exhausted just reading what you all have done on a daily basis — and with pictures! Spending that much time on my computer is the last thing on my mind after a full day of sitting in front of it at work. That doesn’t mean that I don’t find the time to read through all the blogs from work … while waiting for queries and processes to finish, of course. Sssh, don’t tell my users or I’ll have even more projects piled up.

I’m back on my “regular” work schedule. I slacked off a little during Christmas and New Year’s weeks. I actually worked 8 hour days instead of the (ab)normal 10-14 hour days. I don’t think I’ll have much fiber time during the week again for a while, what with the year end reporting and all.

Tomorrow, I go back on pager rotation. Sigh. Another week of no sleep and tedium. Maybe I’ll have some time to knit during the wee hours of the night while I’m waiting for things to happen. Note to self: charge up the batteries tonight/tomorrow morning. I’ve been trying to catch up on sleep so I won’t be going in with a deficit.