Caturday on Sunday
She keeps napping in my light tent, damn her.
My best friend has asked me to finish up a Ravenclaw scarf she started ages ago, and since I taught her to knit in the first place I feel sort of obligated… it shouldn’t take too long, though, since she was over halfway finished with it anyway.
Plus, she lent me her Chibi needles, so I can finally finish up those endpaper mitts. She’s also asked me to photograph some of her gorgeous jewelry, so that she can get her etsy account up:
I love her work. I mean, I dabble in jewelry making occasionally but she understands it the way I do knitting; these creations come straight out of her brain and through her hands and are always stunning.
I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday because I was at a flea market, where I picked up a TON of clothes, as well as three sweaters with good seams to frog. One already has the sleeves off of it,
the other two I may actually get some use out of the way they are. The yarn above is (I think) either an acrylic or an acrylic blend, and there’s lots of it, so it’ll be good for a baby blanket or two. There’s also a black cotton old navy hoodie that I’m definitely leaving in sweater form for the moment. The third is an acrylic chenille type boxy sweater that I suspect is entirely unfashionable, however, it is VERY comfy and fits me well enough, so I’m on the fence about it. Each sweater? $3.
And for those of you who are curious, I am 5’5″ and I weigh 180 pounds. That’s just over 80kg, just under 13 stone. I have a BMI of 30, which puts me firmly in the ‘obese’ category. Do I look obese? I certainly don’t feel obese. Nor do I really plan to lose the 40 pounds that my doctor has asked me to lose; if I happen to do so simply by virtue of living and eating well, that’s fine. I won’t force it. I feel healthy. Judging by the responses I got, I look healthy. Why does there need to be anything more to it?
On a completely unrelated note
As inspired by The Rotund: although I am neither as pretty nor as fabulous, I would like you to guess my height and weight. Seriously. There may be a prize if someone can hit the exact numbers.
I promise I’m not easily (or ever, really) offended, so feel free to just throw guesses out there. Also, the self timer function on my camera is harder to work than it appears.
(there will be actual knitting content tomorrow, and some Caturday, and maybe some blogstalking if I can figure out some sort of creative meaning behind ‘transportation.’ But this was too important for me not to post. See also: sweetmachine’s plea to stop lying about your weight.)
No time to talk.
Four page paper due tomorrow; I’ve got a page and a half written. And unfortunately my normal writing pace is about a sentence an hour. Still, I shouldn’t be here. I should disconnect my internet and take my laptop outside, or something. Nevermind that it’s way too humid outside (someone should alert the weather to the fact that it is officially autumn), if I’m in the house there are so many things to be distracted by. Um, like the blog. Right, I shouldn’t be here.
So have a cat, instead.
ETA: Seriously. I need to be banned from Knittyboard. and Ravelry. and Livejournal. and indigopuzzles. and anywhere else I might find entertainment. UGH. I also need to up my writing speed to two sentences an hour if I want to get this finished… four per hour if I want to finish it and still get some sleep. Seven per hour if I want to get my other homework done as well. Seriously.
All thumbs.
Yes, my endpaper mitts are finally nearing completion. I just need to bind off the second one and knit the thumbs. Yes, I’m redoing the thumb on the first one. I am nothing if not a Virgo to the core. But don’t look at my bedroom, which is a mess. And somewhere in that mess my Chibi case is buried, with all seven of my tapestry needles. I obviously can’t finish these babies until I find them. Cue desperate search in which I discover everything that’s missing in my life, except the needles. I will not buy new ones. I know the second I do the originals will turn up; that’s how I ended up with seven of them to begin with.
My own thumb, however, currently looks like this:
because I knit too much. No, that is not a typo. I have DeQuervain’s Syndrome from too much knitting (well, and typing, and piano playing.) Normally I don’t have to do much beyond wearing the brace at night, and taking it easy on the typing, but yesterday I brought a stockinette sock with me to class, and ended up knitting quite a bit in just a few hours.
Which left me with ridiculous wrist pain last night/this morning. So on with the brace, and no knitting for two days. Which will really help me finish those endpaper mitts. heh. Oh well. Maybe this will give me a chance to catch up on some homework that I’ve been ignoring.
The cat’s out of the bag.
um, as it were.
I got my last knittyboard SP9 package today, in which it was revealed that my pal was the fantastic blu roux!
I don’t have my normal photo taking setup available to me, so I don’t have individual pictures of the yarn, but that is totally enough sock yarn to get me through the semester. And it’s awesome sock yarn, too! Tofutsies in pink and purple, Trekking (mmm Trekking) in a nice bright blue, and Fleece Artist Merino Sock in a gorgeous green/red/gold colourway that is so the perfect thing for fall.
Also in the package were treats for both Kitty and myself, including (chocolate!) smarties!
This is exciting, because in the US what we call smarties are small little discs of flavoured sugar (which are kind of gross, honestly).
And and, an adorable little Lantern Moon keychain that is already hanging out on my keyring:
(Yes, there is only one actual key on my keyring.)
All in all I’m thrilled with how this round turned out. I got awesome pals, both upstream and down (although my downstream still doesn’t know who I am, I still have to send out the final package), and I’m REALLY glad that blu roux sent me Arctic Lace in package #2 because I just picked up a copy for my downstream and I never would have been able to part with it if I hadn’t already had a copy for myself!
Speaking of bags, this week’s blogstalking theme is purse guts. Brace yourselves.
In this massive pile of stuff is: my Friday notebook, English book, recorder, mp3 player and headphones, keys (well, just one key and a lot of keychains, as noted above), four pens, my cell phone, hair clip and various ties, wallet, a random sz7 circ, nearly empty water bottle, knitting bag (with endpaper mitts inside), various bits of gum and wrappers, violet mints courtesy of seiding, my glasses case with both glasses and contact lens case inside, and a shawl (warning! Ravelry link), because none of my professors understand the meaning of the off button on their air conditioning. oof. no wonder my back always hurts after a long day of hauling this stuff around campus.
and now, for a cat that’s really out of the bag.
[edit] and the reason my normal photo taking setup was unavailable?
there was someone napping in it.
A little more in depth.
Who am I? Everyone else was putting together such lovely, detailed posts that I felt a little left out, even though I did a brief bit on it on Saturday. So here’s a bit more insight into Jesh.
I am gluten intolerant.
That means that I can’t have anything containing wheat, rye, barley, oats, or any derivatives of the above– no malt, for example, which usually comes from barley. No beer, no soy sauce (which is brewed with wheat, although there is a very expensive wheat free brand of tamari that I pick up on occasion), no bread (unless I want to spend $7 for a loaf of barely decent frozen rice bread), no putting anything in my mouth without carefully inspecting the label. It’s tough, and everyone always marvels at my ability to resist gluten filled foods, but my health is worth it. Seriously–if that one little ravioli made you violently ill, depressed, and exhausted for several weeks you wouldn’t eat it either. Mmmmm, but I do miss ravioli…
I am a maths geek.
I am the youngest person in my calc class by at least two years, but I still managed the highest score (9.5/10) on our first quiz. Go me.
I can solve a slider puzzle in thirteen seconds.
I am a purple bunny.
This little guy is courtesy of the same friend who knit me a tinosaur. The idea itself of my being a purple bunny came about when I did a google image search for my full name and a bunny came up. I decided to use the bunny as my avatar on a forum that I used to frequent, whose main colour was purple, so I turned the bunny purple and that was that.
I wear glasses (well, usually contacts)
My prescription is so strong that the lenses delineate my face.
I am a musician. (No pictures of this one, since I can’t capture sound with a picture. If you really want to hear, you can download a bitty clip here, but you are warned that I have no formal training (or any training at all, come to think of it) and listening to this clip again, apparently I have no clue what the word ‘tempo’ means, because I’m all over the map. Sheesh.)
I am a doodler.
I draw these branches all over my notes. They’re actually a good representation of the way I think.
I am an avid tea drinker.
That is my travel teacup. I take it with me everywhere. (This is also an old picture, hence the shortness of hair.)
And last but certainly not least, I can leap small ottomans in a single bound. No pictures, just trust me on this one.
So much to do.
College is easily both the easiest and hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Classes are fairly easy; we’re doing review in calc 1 (I’ve already taken up to calc 3, anyway, but they wouldn’t let me in any higher as a freshman), yesterday in communications we did a fun learn everyone’s name exercise that actually really helped me get over my fear/hatred of talking to anyone new. And it allowed me to tell the broken nose while knitting story several times, which is always fun. The hard part is getting enough sleep, and managing my time, and not panicking about making a fool out of myself (everyone does, right?), and not freaking out over nightmares I have about missing my train (which would mean I would have to wait an hour for the next one) or missing my stop on the way home (which would mean a long ass walk.)
Luckily, I have knitting to help drive me even crazier calm me down.
I’m still ignoring my endpaper mitts, but after today the teacloth officially becomes non-travel knitting (not that I should’ve been traveling with it, before, really, but I did anyway) so I should be able to finish them off. They are taking far too long for what was supposed to be a quick project.
And when knitting gets me down, I have… a kitty!
(Sorry. I know it’s not Caturday. But she’s so rarely in my room and I happened to have a camera right there…)
(Also she was jealous of all the other macro-ing going on elsewhere.)
(Also also because she makes little ‘come here, birdy!’ meows when she naps which is really the funniest thing ever to me. Constantly on the prowl, she is.)
So close, and yet…
Finally finished up mitt #1. Bound off (and I love the tubular bind off), wove in every last end. Trimmed the ends, even! Tried it on to make sure everything was ready to go for blocking.
Oh. So that’s why the stitch count for the thumb ribbing was off. I suppose that’s what I get for trying to knit during class.
I’m not sure if I should just secure the stitch and be done with it, or cut off the thumb ribbing and redo. I’m leaning toward a redo… the bind off is a little tight anyway.
So what does one do in the middle of a knitting crisis but… cast on for a new project?
Clearly the most impressive knitting you’ve seen all week. Heh. But it should look much better as soon as it’s long enough to fit around the circular needle.
Kitty, who would normally be all over this silk yarn, is too busy having an eyestaring contest to care.
Today is the day.
Today I am officially Old. Not because nineteen is an old age to be, not at all–it’s because I’m nineteen.
The age that people tend to guess me to be? Twenty-four. I don’t see it, either; my mum says it’s because I have ‘presence’. I think it’s because most of my friends are in their early to mid twenties so I’m considered older by association. Insert illicit but actually not all that interesting tales about getting into NC-17 movies when I was fifteen, here… Oh, but I promised a winner, didn’t I? Well, a carefully constructed mathematical algorithm (ha, I used random.org) told me that artsygal should get the yarn. And get it she shall! Along with some other goodies…
Since today is my birthday and this week’s blogstalking theme is about, well, me, let’s talk a bit about me, shall we?
1. I was born at 11:41AM, Wednesday, 14th September, 1988.
2. Things happened. I grew up a bit.
3. Not much has changed between then and now, really.
To answer the question (who am I?) more specifically, I am a knitter, a student, a musician (kind of), a friend, a sister, an aunt, but above all, a teenager (for another year, at least).
I’ll have actual knitting content and some Caturday tomorrow, while I try to recover from a huge (but fabulous!) dinner, as well as two pieces of cake:
yum.
B minus three and counting.
(I got nearly 120 hits on my blog on Monday, which kind of stuns me. If even a quarter of you stick around I need to start being far more entertaining…)
I always get antsy around my birthday, I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the presents.
(These and a pair of boots and a trip up to Rhinebeck are my birthday presents from my family this year. How cute will those shoes look with handknit socks? Especially striped ones? And they were fifteen bucks at Target. The boots? Thirty bucks. I can’t resist a good deal even when someone else is paying for it.)
Maybe it’s getting older, although I never actually feel any older on or after the day itself.
(This was a combination graduation and birthday present from my best friend–she made the thing by hand, which astounds me every time I put it on, and I wear it every day. Um, please ignore the fact that it needs polishing.)
Maybe it’s just me being me; so many of my friends and acquaintances consider birthdays to be boring, stupid things to get excited over, because it is just another day, after all. But I can’t help it. I’m overjoyed at the fact that I’ve survived another year, and look at how many things I’ve done and how many ways I’ve changed in that year. I’ve become a better me. I’ve accomplished things I never thought I could do–things that so many people in the world never will do. And I think that’s reason enough to celebrate.
But you’re here for the knitting content, aren’t you? Well, fine then! *sniff*
I finished chart B in class today, and soon I hope to start the ribbing, but I have to do some math first, because I won’t be knitting a full repeat of chart A. You see, I normally wear anywhere from four to six rings on my left hand and one to three on my right, and I discovered that if I knit all of chart A, and then the ribbing, well:
That would be snag-city. And no one would see my rings! So I need to work out something to prevent that from happening. I think if I do a half inch or so more of the pattern and then a half inch of ribbing (and I don’t even know what the pattern calls for, here, maybe I should look that up) it’ll be okay. And if I’m very lucky I’ll have this one mitt done by the weekend. Then I can… make another one. Dang. Second Mitten Syndrome, anyone?
(Today is the final clue, because I have to finish that stupid paper and I won’t get a chance to post again before late Friday/Saturday. The clue is picture of me:
although admittedly I’m looking at this picture and wondering how in the hell anyone mistakes me for the age they do. I look so… teenager-ish. Oh, and yes, chemgrrl, you have another guess, but I’m afraid this one last clue may not help you much…)
Jeshknits 