Grr. Argh.

I finally made it to a knit nite last night. The Beat Coffeeshop was quiet and rather a comfortable place to sit, and chat, and do crafty-type things. I finished repeat #3 of the straight rows on my Clapotis, so that was nice.

I am currently frustrated, however. I seem to have misplaced my Kindle. :(

I went to pull it out last night at KinhDo for dinner, and it wasn't in my backpack. I went home, and looked, and it wasn't in the usual places. I figured it might have been left at work, buried under folders. No such luck.

I clearly remember having it Monday night, as I was sitting in the parking lot of South HS while I was waiting for my sewing class to start. And I think I had it Tuesday night, reading for 0.2 seconds before I went to sleep. And I think I had it yesterday morning, over by the iMac, as I was cleaning my glasses. But it's not by the bed, the iMac, nor is it in my backpack now.

Since it's not at work, all I can hope is that I set it down somewhere in our house, and I just need to find it tonight. I hope so... if I've lost it, that's not good. It's not a cheap item. And losing expensive things makes me crazy, and not in a good way. It's the hard thing about all the neat portable gadgets that exist.... they're easier to lose because they're so mobile. I'd been so careful with it. I'm going to be distracted all day until I can get home and find it.

Yay!

I had sewing class #2 last night. Still low pressure, and we did no actual sewing last night. We did, however, cut out pattern pieces and spent most of the time picking out our fabric choices for the tote bag we're making. Mine's in shades of dark red and tan, and I can't wait to actually start working on it. Next week, we cut out fabric pieces from our pattern!

Also, I found out today that we're going to Hawaii at the end of May! Sean's been a very good boy this year, and he gets to go to the sales club meeting this year (this year's version of the one we went to in the Bahamas in January 2008, when we got engaged), and I get to go with him!

And it's conveniently during the week after Memorial Day weekend, so instead of taking the Friday before Memorial Day off, I'm working that, and taking all of the rest of the week after Memorial Day off. It will be quite awesome.

Still working on the Clapotis, slowly. I'm hoping to make some good progress on the pattern tonight.

I might also cast on for a Sekrit project. We'll see. I went to Bella Lana last night and found some nice yarn in some excellent colors and thought it would make a great Sekrit project. We'll see how long it takes me.

Last weekend in April.

It was a good weekend, if a bit short. I got some napping in while listening to NPR yesterday, and I finally got to give my FIL his FIL scarf. He seems to like it quite a bit, so that makes me happy. Sean got a photo of Dad (wearing the scarf) and I. Once I get a copy of it, I'll post it. We also got him a Bose Wave Radio for his birthday, and he loves it.

I got to work on my Clapotis a little, also. I'm into the 3rd repeat of the straight rows. Last night, I almost had a minor disaster... I'm using interchangeable needles, and the needle tip that I was starting to knit from came flying off , which meant I dropped some stitches. in a section that didn't have them intentionally.

In times in the not so distant past, I would have gotten pretty upset and made that known. But Sean and I have talked about that, and I'm working on finding ways to channel that flashpoint and focus on solving the problem.

I didn't use profanity once, and instead of stomping around and flailing and getting upset, I instead managed to rescue and reknit all the lost stitches back onto the needle. It's definitely progress, and it makes us both less crazy. It also makes me more productive. OF course, I also had a lifeline in place. If I hadn't been able to get the stitches back on, I had put in a lifeline at the end of the increase rows so that if I did have to rip back, it would only be the straight rows. Still. It's progress, and I am happy to see it.

I kind of woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, for no apparent reason. And I won't get to see Sean for the few minutes he stops by the house this evening to pack and run to the airport because I have my sewing class tonight. I'm kind of hiding out in my cube here at work today, since I just don't really want to talk to anyone. It's not usual for me, but it's just being one of those days. I'm not having a bad day, but I am having a hermit-y kind of day. :)

Omg, a photo surfaces!

It looks like I have survived another quarter-end! Hooray!


Also, last night, I stayed up too late and finished the increase rows on my clapotis. Here is a crappy cell phone photo. someday, I shall get a photo with my shiny Nikon. Until then, here's what I could reach easily at midnight. 107 stitches on the needles.



Now I start the straight rows, where I intentionally drop stitches. I'm great at unintentionally dropping stitches. We shall see how I do with dropping them on purpose.


I went to see Dr Emily on Monday for my annual physical. Aside from testing fasting blood sugar levels (which may or may not be an issue, though they haven't been before) and cholesterol (which is probably high), she's testing for lyme disease and mono, due to the continued severe fatigue I'm feeling. And I am scheduled for an overnight sleep study on May 5, to see if anything shows up in my brainmeatz overnight that might explain things. The melatonin helped me make it through quarter-end intact, but the exhaustion's still there, and I know that the melatonin use is only a short-term answer.


And Sean started yesterday morning in Minneapolis, flew to Chicago on the omg early flight, flew to Cleveland on a late flight, and will fly back to Minneapolis via Chicago tonight. That doesn't beat his craziest week, where he was into and out of a different city 4 days in a row (something like Chicago to St Louis to Nashville to Des Moines and home), but it's a lot of time in airports.

I'm taking the Friday of Memorial Day weekend off to get a 4 day weekend. Still trying to figure out where we want to go. I'm torn between someplace I know and love and places I've never been that contain people I know and love. We shall see. We're a last-minute decision sort of duo.

quick update

Haven't done a lot of knitting this week... did get a little done last night while talking to Ann online.... I'm now further ahead on the Clapotis (by 3-4 rows) than I was when I messed up the pattern before. I haven't worked on any mitered squares either.

I'm hoping to get some good knitting time in this weekend. I think I have the whole weekend off, and it's sorely needed. Between the craziness at work the last few weeks and the whirlwind weekend in New England last week, I would love 2 solid days to putter around and relax.

I should have some more photos up soon - tonight, if I can stay awake long enough to get the camera on and shooting photos. :)

And thanks to the people who're reading this! I'm over 100 site visits, and that's awesome to see! I hope to return to marginally interesting posts about knitting and my other crafty pursuits soon. Oh, and I start my lern2sew class this next Monday night!

New England girl goes home again!

No knitting has been done since my last post. I had a whirlwind couple of days at work, leading up to the weekend, and I am so exhausted from work that I spent my time at the airport and on airplanes just reading, as much as I could, given my lack of concentration.

But we had a wonderful weekend in New England. Pauline and Amos are married, and their wedding ceremony was beautiful, and Sean and I spent most of the reception on the dance floor, which was awesome.

And today, we drove 2 hours each way to spend 5 hours in Maine! We got to meet Athena Jane, who's the most beautiful daughter of one of my best friends (we've known each other for 30 years this September), and relax in their wonderful home.

We tested the limits of the rental car on the way back to Logan, but Sean made his flight, and I got home about a half-hour ago.

I didn't get a chance to grab dinner before I left Boston, and so I'm drinking a well-deserved beer for dinner. :P And I'll be in bed soon. I'm tired. And I'm a bit anxious about work tomorrow, and the next few days before the senior staff financial review.

I'm mostly trying not to think about work. :)

... And starting anew!

But.... all of this is building character. I'm back through the setup rows, fairly quickly this time, and that puts me back where I was before I started last night.

I'm going to be smart enough to recognize how exhausted I am and not push to try to do the first repeat of the increase rows. :)

Maybe tomorrow.

Fail.

The last post was hubris, plain and simple.

I promptly came home, after another 12+ hour day at work, and managed to get the 1st two rows of the repeat backwards, and I tinked back the 2 rows, and then ended up off by a stitch, and then I dropped stitches off to the point that they've unraveled and I just can't see how to put it back together.

I'm so exhausted I can't even get upset. All I'll do is print the spreadsheet again and start over again. *sighs* I wish I hadn't messed it up, since it was going so well, and I was having fun, but maybe it'll teach me to knit the right rows.

I should have known better than to tackle this pattern tonight. Blah.

Movin' right along....

I finished another one of the increase row repeats on the clapotis while talking to my stepdaughter on IMs last night. It's becoming a lot easier for me to keep track of where I am in the middle of a row of the pattern - and the spreadsheet I have makes it so easy!

I have a feeling I'll make more Clapotis' as gifts. :)

I think I'll probably work on mitered squares in the airport/on the plane over the weekend, mostly. easier to mindlessly knit. I'll have the clapotis with me, though, because sometimes, I just need to work with that beautiful egyptian cotton yarn!

So looking forward to the weekend.

Photographic Evidence!

Here's a photo (genus: cell phone, species: crappy; someday, i'll go get the D80 and put the 18-70 lens on it and take a photo using it!) of my tiny little Clapotis-to-be:

There is satisfaction in doing something right...

I did it! With help. But I successfully knitted the set-up rows and the first repeat of the increase rows of the Clapotis!!

I found a spreadsheet, thanks to Ravelry, that allows me to check things off and has ending stitch counts for the end of each row, and is laid out such that I can follow it. I am so excited! This is fun to knit!

Hurrah!

Lern2Knit

I ran to 3 Kittens Needle Arts 15 minutes before they closed yesterday, since I was down at MSP dropping Sean off at the airport, and got some beautiful Egyptian Cotton yarn. With that yarn, I started the Clapotis last night. And then started it again. And a few more times. And now, I have no Clapotis on my needles. *sighs*

I don't know why I can't seem to follow patterns. Everyone else does. I'm so frustrated. I'm not giving up, and I'd like to state, for the record, that I did not blow up, use profanity, or otherwise comport myself in anything other than a dignified manner last night as I frogged and re-started the Clapotis many times.

This, my friends, is progress. But still, the fact remains that despite the photo in this post, I have no Clapotis on my needles. But at one of several points last night, I did, in fact, have section 1 completed:

But I can start again tonight. And keep going until I can figure out how to do it right and have the right # of stitches on the needle on any given row. I got all the way to row 8 or 10 of section 2, and then made a mistake. Maybe I need to get better at fixing mistakes, since all I can see to do, when faced with the wrong # of stitches on the needle, is to start all over again, since there are ssks and k2togs and ktbls and kfbs pfbs and I can't figure out how to work back through them. I know how to do them, which is a nice feeling. I read the pattern, and I know what all of it means. I just can't seem to translate it well into the stitches on my needles.

So, tonight, I will again attempt to get solidly into section 2 of Clapotis. Maybe I also need to re-type the pattern into something easier for my brain to process. I get lost in the k1s and the ktbls when I read it in a row (just don't visually process it well anymore), so maybe if I rewrite the pattern in an easier format for me to read, it would help.

I finished another mitered square yesterday (that makes 3, though I have no photo of #2 or #3 yet), and cast on for another one.

I'll figure this out. I just need to find the ways that work for me.

The descent into the tunnel of the device networking mines...

No photos in this entry, sadly, but I will try to take a couple later tonight.

Month-end for March and quarter-end for Q2 starts today, so I'll be pulling lots of 8pm-9pm evenings and working Saturday. I likely won't make it to knit nites or anything else (boo!) for the next few weeks, but in the little bit of time I have between getting home and going to bed, I'll be knitting.

I'm hooked on mitred squares! :) And with any luck, I'll have enough of the Noro left that I can make us a blanket from the same yarn Ann's is made of - but it'll look different. I think the mitred square idea will find its way into a baby blanket that's long past due for Athena Jane, my niece (she's my best friend's little one, and Rose and I are as close as sisters).

I knitted another square last night, while watching episodes 10-13 of The Wire. I'm now caught up on season 4, and Sean took season 5 with him to Chicago. He'll be home late Thursday night, so I can try to sneak in some season 5-watching this weekend. I still need to catch up on most of season 2 and some of season 3. Season 4 was absolutely fantstic, and I can't wait to see Season 5. I'll be sad when it's over. Then I'll have to find some other long-running show to start watching from beginning to end.

I'll throw up a hand when I'm back in the world of the living, at the end of April. :) Will update as I can.