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.