March in Minnesota

I usually avoid talking too much about the weather, especially in negative terms, because it is what it is and there is no point to bitching about something that is inevitable and unchangable. It will be cold (really, really cold) in Minnesota in the winter, it will be hot (but mostly not too hot) in the summer, there will be rain and snow and clouds and sun. Oh, and most of March in Minnesota will be disgusting, both because it is a bit warmer and therefore the melting snow makes it very overcast in a normally very sunny state and because I am not from here, which means that I feel like it should be springlike by the end of March. HOWEVER, sometimes said weather is remarkable enough to comment upon.

A few weeks back, we got two waves of snow less than a week apart totaling about 24 inches.

It went from this:



To this:


And then to this:

(Turns out that I don't have any pictures of the snow after the second storm. Imagine the first doubled here)

There were 8-foot high piles on snow all over, because the plows had to put the snow somewhere. This persisted for a bit, and then in the past week or so it warmed up quite a bit. On Monday, I took advantage of the 50 degree F (!) weather and the time change and went for a long walk along the creek after work. Even after almost a week of temps well above freezing, there was still quite a bit of snow. However, the presence of liquid water outside (!) for the first time in months was lovely:

Notice all of the ducks. In a few weeks they will be dashing in front of cars on the parkway honking indignantly because they are CROSSING here with their ducklings. Here are more ducks:


They honked at me for daring to be on the sidewalk.

The creek is lovely:



And still a bit frozen:



You'd never guess at some points at how close the surrounding houses are:




There are bridges:



And then I walked the few block back to my house through the neighborhood. The melting snow was trapped by the not-yet-melted snow, which meant quite a bit of water on the streets and sidewalks:



Some of the puddles, combined with the angle of the light, made for some cool pictures:







That last one is my favorite.

Then I walked down the alley, went through the gate, and I was home. You will notice how much snow still has not melted:



It was getting dark, so I went inside. I had to finish filling out my bracket (Go Hoyas!!!!)

Also, a note to my sister.

Um, Tori? You don't get to hint (I first wrote kint, which is how I will refer to hinting about knitting from now on) about wanting random knitted gifts when very soon I will design and knit your wedding veil, a project that makes veteran knitters blanch and stammer.

That is all.


*****Edited to add*****

This is a joke. Kinting is not a problem and is, in fact, rather amusing.

And Now Even More Knitting Content

Comment on how much knitting content there is, and you will get more of it.

I found this pattern a couple of months ago, and I wanted to make it.

Shut up.

I am a total fangirl, but also, see how pretty the pattern is? And I have stupidly sensitive skin, so I have to wear gloves or something much later that most people do, so they are very practical for me. Also, I decided to make it from stash yarn. I had some Frog Tree Alpaca that I thought would work nicely. Alas, it was too fuzzy to show off the lovely cabling. I was not willing to do all of that work if it was not going to show, so I decided to make the pattern without most of the cabling:



They came out pretty well. HOWEVER, remember that stupidly sensitive skin? Even though these were made of alpaca, they seriously scratched my skin, especially on the back of my hands. So I donated them to charity and began again.

This time I bought yarn for the project--after some poking around, I decided upon RY Classic Silk & Wool DK. It is soft yet provides a nice definition, and it is smooth so it doesn't scratch. Also, this time I worked the pattern more or less as written:



I love how they came out.

I have also been working on various socks and designing another pair of handwarmers, but I have finished these two projects recently:



a long, thin Colinette slip-stitch scarf (two of them, actually),

and a newborn kimono.

Chapter 42: In which She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is gratified to not have acted on her first impulse.

Last week sometime I was riding the Light Rail to work, headphones on and knitting away, when a nicely-dressed middle-aged woman grinned pleasantly, leaned in and said something to me on the way to the door for her stop.

She said, "There are three *******s on the train."

Now, what *I* heard through my music was an ethnic slur beginning with the letter "n" and rhyming with "chiggers." I was *so shocked* by the fact that it appeared this woman had just offhandedly slurred half the people on the train (Minneapolis is more multi-racial than one would think, and we had just passed the stop in the Somali neighborhood) that I just stared at her for a second, slack-jawed, before pulling myself together enough to say "excuse me?" as neutrally as possible, all the while readying a response.

She repeated herself and elaborated:

"There are three knitters on the train. *I* was knitting, and that woman (pointing) is knitting, and you are knitting."

Oh. KNITTERS.

I made about 30 seconds of polite conversation before she got off at her stop. I hope it was polite, at least--I have no idea what I said. I was *so close* to telling that poor woman off, and she was just trying to say something nice about knitting.

Fire on the Mountain

More pictures to hold y'all over--I finished my Fire on the Mountain Jaywalkers two Sundays ago:




The colors really are tie-dyed.

I fooled around with the cuffs, but I am still not totally happy about how they work--I did three rows of garter instead of the ribbing, which generally works better, but rolls. I may just need to do more garter for the cuff next time--this time I was worried about running out of yarn again.

Presidents Day

I unexpectedly had Presidents Day off and it was a lovely day, so I took a stroll around the lake.








It really was a pretty day--and I always love how the types of trees change as one circles the lake.

Of course, Minnesotans are sure that they know all about lakes and ice, no matter what signs are posted:



Those two guys were ice fishing--and about to drill some more holes:


Many other people were also ice fishing, but they wimped out and brought shelters:





People also had other things to do on the frozen lake:


(This guy was essentially snowboarding with a kite pulling him along.)

I saw an old friend:


Here's a closer look:


It looks like someone *started* to make an ice house:



but as far as I have seen, nothing has been done with these snow bricks.


And, as always, I stopped two-thirds of the way around the lake for a few moments and sat on this bench:


looking out at this view:



I love this sort of memorial. I would love to be remembered in this way, giving people somewhere to rest and enjoy a beautiful view.

On the way back home I *may* have poked my head in the LYS and picked up this Colinette 40% off:


It is destined to be a slip-stitch scarf.


It was a good day.

An Open Letter to the Man Sitting Next to Me on the Light Rail Last Evening

Dear Man,

I was knitting when you sat down next to me. Stop elbowing me and giving me looks and sighs because I didn't stop when you sat down. I go out of my way not to take up more than my fair share of space, and my arm moving doesn't change that. You would think that I was stabbing you with my needles or something, the way you were carrying on. Also? I have lived in the Midwest long enough to be good at passive-aggression. The more you carry on, the more likely I am to "accidentally" elbow you in the ribs. I'm just sayin', is all.

42.

I have several posts brewing for once I dig out from under all of this work, but judging from the comments y'all don't need me anyway. I would like to suggest that we cut off the comments on any post pnce they hit 42 for now--as the two previous posts have done.

PSA

My sister asked this in my comments:

"Hey, I know a chick with a serious fiber fetish, she raises her own sheep and llamas to get the wool. She sometimes dyes and sells skeins, would that be a birthday present for you?"


Small-batch, hand-spun and hand-dyed wool is *always* a good present for any knitter.

*ALWAYS*

This is true even if there isn't enough of the yarn for a whole project--it can be used as an edging or other accent.

Actually, pretty and/or unusual yarn in general is always a good present for any knitter.

That is all.

Geeks in Love

Matter-Eater Lad: Why can't *I* have a TARDIS and travel through time and space and not have to write grant proposals?

She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed: And have to blow up your entire planet and your family and essentially everyone you know in order to save the universe from the Time War?

MEL: That only happened that *one time*.

SWMBO: I'm pretty sure that it only happening once doesn't change its awfulness. It really only *can* happen once.

MEL: *Travel in space and TIME.*



And this isn't even the conversation in which MEL compared me to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

PSA

When the air temperature is below 0 degrees F, the plastic surrounding the wires on one's iPod headphones will freeze stiff. Be sure to straighten said headphone wires *before* stepping outside so as to avoid headphones that are frozen wound so tightly that one must hold one's hand at ear level in order to keep the iPod connected to the headphones.

Socks and other knitting.

So, I never even got around to posting my Christmas knitting. I think it is a bit late to do so now, but here are some more recent finished projects.

A not-very-well-composed picture of my Love in Idleness socks:


Matter-Eater Lad gave me this yarn for Christmas. The yarn is Socks that Rock Mid-weight, and the pattern is garter rib from Sensational Knitted Socks ("SKS"). SKS has some really great tips--get a load of the top of the gusset:

No hole!

I also finished the Ruby Slippers Jaywalker socks after the nice woman at Blue Moon Fiber Arts sent me these:



mini-skeins. That's the Fire on the Mountain next to them for scale. I only used a teeny-tiny bit of one of the minis, which shows you just how bad my karma was two Mondays ago.

I like how this yarn works with the Jaywalker pattern:


so much that I am using the same pattern (with fewer repeats) for the Fire on the Mountain yarn.


Ooooh, and I also knit this:


I really love how it came out.

An Open Letter to the Salesman at the Honda Dealership

Dear Salesman,

After not introducing yourself and making the people to whom you are potentially going to sell a car wander around behind you in the lot for 10 minutes in 5 degree F weather while you figure out your inventory (which you could have done inside on the computer), you are probably not going to sell a car to those people. That "probably" will become a "definitely" when you have been talking exclusively to the female half of the couple about cars and you come back with the keys for the test drive and *hand them to the male half of the couple without asking who is going to drive.* Trust me on this one.

I like to eat.

Hmmm. From conversation with Elderly Relative regarding one of my sisters and her job while in grad school:


E.R.: "You girls are so good about having jobs, in high school, college, and after that."

(Pause while I consider how to respond to this somewhat startling statement, which was delivered in a tone that implied that we hadn't *needed* to work and were, in fact, working in order to have some pocket money for fripperies or non-essential travel)

KAEG: "Well, we like to eat."

(Pause while E.R. trys to figure out what I mean by this. It is important to note at this point that just this past month E.R. was complaining about possibly not having enough money in general while quoting an amount of net monthly *interest* income (which is what she lives off of) that is several thousand dollars more than MEL and I live on each month. And we have a mortgage payment and debts, aside from there being two of us.)

E.R. changes subject, because she has *no idea* how to respond, as if the idea of needing to work to live has *never occurred to her*.

Sigh.

And Now a Funny Picture.

Hee.

I love trashy British papers (as far as I can tell, this means all of them). They are just shameless about using puns.

Awesome people do not suck.

So, the knitting that I was doing while waiting to find out that our car is on life support yesterday was the second in a pair of Jaywalker socks knit from Socks that Rock lightweight in the "Ruby Slippers" colorway. I really like the pattern and the yarn, but I knew that I was going to be very close to not having enough yarn to finish the second sock. I should have had *just* enough--with my swatches (which I frogged and used) I had *exactly* enough yarn to finish. The fact that I was going to finish them yesterday (a/k/a "The Day on Which Neither Matter-Eater Lad nor I Should Have Gotten Out of Bed") meant, of course, that I ran out of yarn halfway through the toe of the sock. Ten ever-decreasing rows short of completion there was no more yarn. I thought that I had two options:

1) Use totally random yarn to finish the sock, or;
2) Order a whole new skein and plan on making another pair of shorter socks as well.

Neither of these options pleased me. I didn't *want* a random toe, and I would rather work with a new colorway.

My friend K. suggested a third option:

3) Call the dye/yarn shop and see if they have any scraps hanging around that they may be willing to send me.

So, I tried option #3. And it *totally worked*. The nice woman at Blue Moon Fiber Arts had some mini-skeins of that colorway for some of her stranded sock kits, and she is sending them to me!
Strictly as a thank-you, I also ordered one skein of STR lightweight in Fire on the Mountain. I wouldn't want to appear ungrateful.

Ways in which one can spend Mondays (while one should be at work) finishing one's knit socks ************the first in a one-part series************

a. Have transmission on car slow down shifting and then suddenly refuse to get into gear at all at a red light downtown (also be sure that current air temp is -15F);

2. Have car towed to shop (love AAA) and wait for four hours (knitting happens here) to find out that the cold has caused a transmission line to the radiator to burst, which is fixable at a reasonable price, but then find out that transmission is a bit damaged anyway, which is *not* fixable at a reasonable price given that one's car may, in fact, be a 7-year-old Neon. Note that one had to have radiator line fixed in order to find out that transmission was fried;

D. In the end be slightly mollified by fact that car is marginally drivable, meaning that one does not have to in fact buy new car *tonight*;

42. Be sad that one's next car will not, in fact, be able to be a hybrid with heated seats as one was hoping if a certain Neon had lasted throughout one's husband's graduate school career. Be slightly mollified by the idea of having power windows, which Neon emphatically did not have.