Sunday, May 31, 2009

Beam me up hatty

Scotty's Hat

Made a little progress with Scotty's Hat. Finished the panel and picked up stitches along the side for panel B.

I did a minor modification, ssk instead of K2tog on the right side.

Next up is a wrap and turn. Always exciting!

Many of the other people haven't gotten very far (obviously they have a life (or doesn't have a partner who needs the computer to work on important papers)) so it's not too late to join the knit-along. The more the merrier.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Let the knit along begin!


Just casted on for Scotty's Hat (from Star Trek) knitalong!

Join the chat over here.

There's two of us on ravelry too.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Going with the grey


Just bought my yarn for the Scotty's Hat (from Star Trek) knitalong. It took me a long time to decide. Was thinking about some undyed 100% wool, which was nice and soft. Then I saw Serenity by Wendy, a 10% wool, 20% alpaca and 70% acrylic for half the price. Then came the long and ugly battle of deciding between the two, but frugality/the realities of not having a job won. Can't really complain that much about the yarn though, it's soft enough, a lot like Encore actually.

I also had a hard time figuring out what color to get. They had a brown, which would be closest to the reddish/brown that was in the movie. But I don't actually own any brown clothes, it's just not a color that in any way appeals to me. I also thought about a black, but I already wear too much black clothes, so light grey it is. The knitalong is open to everyone, so please come and join me on ravelry.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Arg, these socks are killing me

Jessamy's socks are done, I don't have any more pregnant friends, and the knit-along for Scotty's hat from Start Trek isn't until Saturday, so I'm bringing out the only UFO I brought with me from America, the pirate socks.

I had put it aside because it was far to big for my brother. It's color-knitting, so I initially thought that since it won't stretch very easily I'll make it a little big. Only my brother tried it on way back when and it was far too big.

So, before I brought it out of the closet I decided to go along with a previous decision(from like 6 months ago) that I would make it stretchier by ripping it out and insert ribbing in between the skulls and not actually knit it in the round, but change it from fair isle to an in-the-round intarsia (will find and link instructions in future posts). So I took the sock out, saw that it was even bigger than I had remembered, like big enough to put on the head of a small child, and that I had in fact already ripped it out, put ribbing in between the skulls, and done the intarsia in the round trick.

Sigh.

I've also managed to forget my brother's shoe size. And I'm not really happy with my skulls either. I'm not ready to totally abandon the idea yet, though. So stay tuned.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Finished

Tah dah!

I think they look nice, and Jessamy loves them. Content.

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Twitter knit-in day

Today is twitter knit-in day (#twknitin, I'm thatyarnstore over on twitter). So I decided to take advantage of it and participate. The goal is to finish Jessamy's pomatomus socks., and hopefully finish redoing a hat.

Here is what the sock looked like at 9:30 in the morning (the other sock is done)
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And here it's 1:30
Sunset socks

I have only a few more rows to go, and then it's time to do the toe!

Friday, May 22, 2009

Ravelry related news

My 4th blog post this week! I must be unemployed or something.

If you're on Ravelry and are looking for a fun new project I'm trying to organize a knit along for Scotty's slouchy hat in the latest Star Trek film. http://www.ravelry.com/groups/that-yarn-store

If you aren't on Ravelry and would like to do it we could coordinate twitter postings, or a flickr group.

Also on Ravelry I've started a group called Let's Cook where people can post questions, recipes, etc. I hope it will be a place where people who aren't very good cooks (me!) can learn from people who love to cook and bake. I started the group yesterday and it already has 5 members!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Passing the link

Claudia over at Claudia's Blog is having a pledge drive to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Please head over there and donate - plus she has lots of delicious and fiberlicious prizes to win!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Craftacular week so far

Friday was my last day at the temp job. I was there since October, and they got rid of me and the other temp for budget reasons.

Which means I actually have time to do crafty things!
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An experiment with fusing plastic.

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Got a little better (it's a hair tie!)

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And then I went crazy and made an ipod cozy for Jessamy.

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It's been a while since I've embroidered. Hop Hop.

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And I'm on my way to finishing Jessamy's pomatomus socks. Yay!

I'm also working on a remade tank top, but my sewing machine is acting up and I've decided that instead of wrestling with it I'll just hand-sew the straps. Much more time intensive of course, but that's ok, I have time for now...

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Still trying to cook

I think I've shared how my dinners are usually pretty boring. But Jessamy liked tonights. It's cabbage soup from 101 cookbooks. If you're on ravelry I'm trying to get a group together for people who want to be better at cooking.

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Here's the glamour shot.

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Saturday, May 16, 2009

Remade shirt!

It's raining, so no walking today. Instead, I finished this!

Mom bought Generation T, a book on remaking shirts, last year, maybe even two years ago. I actually brought it over to England and occasionally brought it down off the shelf to contemplate crafty shirt ideas, but didn't actually try to make something until last weekend. Most of my ideas didn't work, this one kind of did. Oh, and that thing in the middle was already there, but I think? I could make something similar. You can pull on the yarn and make the sleeves shorter, or keep it so it looks slashed. There's also a drawstring type of thing with the side of the shirt.

I have ambitious ideas for my next shirt.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Day 8 of the Hadrian's wall walk, continued

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A lamb!


It was around this point when the trail entered a cow pasture. Until this point the trail had either ran through sheep pastures, or the cows we saw where far from us at the other end of the pasture. But in this pasture the cows were surprisingly close.

Jessamy and I were half way through the field when I happened to see movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked, and saw four cows, at something approximating full gallop, running towards us. My fight or flight instinct kicked in and I promptly started running, yelling "oh my god they're running towards us", and simultaneously scanning my surroundings for an exit or a place along the outer stone wall where I could perhaps leap over the wall and thus into safety. About the time I finished saying "us" I looked back at the cows and noticed they were standing still, at a safe and not too scary distance. I walked back the 20 or so feet to where I left Jessamy standing during my brief run to "safety". Apparently she had been yelling at me while I was running to "stand still" as cows have "prey vision" and can only see you if you're running. Learn something new everyday.

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Stopped for lunch at Errington Arms. I had a chicken and mushroom pie, with a puff pastry on top (not sweet) with a half pint of Cumberland Ale. Jessamy had a burger (I think we're lacking in some essential nutrients as we've been craving meat lately and we usually aren't big meateaters) and some beer I can't remember the name of. My pie ok, the puff pastry was wonderful! One of us will really have to work on our baking skills, I'd really love to have freshly baked foods on a regular basis. My dish had three kinds of side vegetables and potatoes, so we left completely stuffed.

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We crossed another cow pasture and once again saw cows start running towards us. In a feat of logic over emotion because I knew the ditch in between us and them would slow them down considerably I told Jessamy to get a picture of them running towards us. Here they are, having just stopped running towards us.

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Here is the site of the Battle of Heavenfield, where one of the kings of Northumbria battled Celts. Or something.

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The wall! And me looking gnomeish

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The River Tyne. Yup, same river that we've seen throughout our walks. Walked through the small town of Chollerford, and ended up at Chesters Roman Fort an hour before the bus was to arrive! So we sat at some park benches in the parking lot. As we almost missed the bus out that morning since it arrived early we made sure to walk towards the stop 10 minutes early. As we left the parking lot we saw the van! If it wasn't for the fact that people were already waiting for it we would have missed our ride home. But we caught it and arrived home very tired from the walk.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Day 8 of the Hadrian's wall walk

Today was Day 8 of our Coast to Coast walk.

The trip started off shortly after 9 am when we caught the AD 122 bus to Robin Hood Inn. We arrived at the stop 10 minutes early, so we were fortunately there when the bus came by 5 minutes early, but we almost didn't see it in time, so the driver actually had to pull over a bit away from the stop.

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I would have liked to have thanked the owner of in the inn for trying to help us last week by eating there, but since it was so early in the morning it wasn't open for food.

I was happily walking along when Jessamy pointed out this.
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A slug. I had just assumed it was decomposing leaves on the ground, but no, it was a living, and slow moving, creature. I spent the next ten minutes carefully watching where I was stepping.


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First sheep of the day!

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Me on one of the many stiles.

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It's official!


A view.

More pictures and tales later.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Day 7 of Hadrians Wall Walk

Yesterday was Day 7 of our Coast to Coast walk.

The main bus that drives along the Hadrian's Wall route (AD 122) only goes to Newcastle once a day, so we tried to time it so that we can take another bus to where we had left off last month (can't believe it's been a month) and with enough time (3 hours) to walk 5 miles.

We got to Heddon-on-the-Wall at around 3:00.


We walked across town (it's a small town) to Military Road. Military Road was actually built on top of Hadrian's Wall, thanks to politicians and road makers of the 1700s. Not too long into the walk we saw sheep and little lambs! Yes, I am a city girl.

A little further down and the path cut through sheep pastures!

Jessamy, in predictable fiber-hoarder behavior, snatched some wool that had been lying by the path.

Then we came upon a sign on a gate saying "Vindobala". I had done my homework and new that there was once a fort on these very premises, right beside where the wall would have been. The fort can no longer be seen, as its stones were later "reused". I was going to take a picture of the sign for "Vindobala". But first I took a picture of this sheep eating grass on it's knees.

My first reaction was "wow, laziness is amazing". So I took the picture. And then I thought, "what if its knees are injured, and I'm just being insensitive and ignorant". I almost deleted the picture. And then the camera ran out of batteries. The "backup" batteries in the case were also dead. "I need a new system" was Jessamy's reaction. As we walked through Vindobala the kneeling sheep stood up and Booed at us until we left the field. I didn't know sheep could Booo.

We continued walking and about ten minutes later we came across a great view. Jessamy thought it was worthy of another go at the camera. And she managed to get this picture before it turned off for good.

The rest of the trip was, well, stressful. When we arrived at a town called Harlow Hill (not surpisingly the town is situated on a hill) Jessamy insisted that she knew the name, and that, despite the fact that I had done all of the research and planning this far on this trip, and that she had not actually looked at any of the maps of this leg of the journey, and even though, by her own calculations, we had only traveled about 3 miles as opposed to the five that would take us to our destination, she had come to the conclusion that we were in fact completely lost. That we had, during the course of our walk thus far, walked past our destination. I think her basis for this freaking out was because we had been walking for a longer amount of time than 5 miles should take. As I had no idea where we could have gone wrong, we decided to keep going. The next mile was extremely stressful. We finally saw a sign post for East Wallhouses, the town where Robin Hood Inn was located, a pub/inn where we would catch our bus. The sign stated it was a mile from East Wallhouses, it was then around 5:15 and we were to catch our bus, the last and only one of the day, at 5:55. So we walked really, really fast. When we arrived, there was no bus signage. And, Jessamy had made me doubt if I had written the time down correctly. So, I went into the pub and asked. I was told by someone, possibly the owner, that the bus was scheduled to have started running in April, but she hadn't seen any drive past. She went to look for a route timestable for me as mine was at home in PDF format on the computer. But, she couldn't find any. The bus, of course, came. I'm of course trying to understand what went horribly wrong on this trip, and how I can prevent it from happening. Should Jessamy know, whether she wants to or not, as much about our walking routes as I do, should I print out everything I can (wasting paper of course), should we just print out a list of the towns we'll pass, or should I just trust myself and ignore Jessamy when she's dooms-daying? We shall see what drama next week will bring.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

On the road again, almost

The weather report kept predicting rain for today, but they've changed their minds overnight, which means we get to go walking again today!

We probably won't be getting back until 7pm, so I most likely won't get pics up today.

I'm still working on Jessamy's sock. One is done, finished a few days ago.

And this blury, dark photo is of the cuff of the next one. I think I was trying to be experimental.