Off to England

My flight is at 8pm tonight, I haven't finished packing and I'm a quandry as to whether I can take knitting needles on my flight. The TSA on the American side says I can, but unfortunately I have a domestic connecting flight in the UK where I can't for the life of me figure out if I can take my dpns, even the plastic ones. Argh! It might just be better to pack it all in the checked baggage and take a good book with me instead. Life is unfair.

What's also unfair is that I ran out of time to get to a yarn store to stock up on every conceivable dpn size around 4mm so that I could spend my Christmas break knitting the arms and yoke for my latest project. Since the debacle with the Alice sleeves (where even after three attempts I couldn't get gauge with the correct size dpns), I'm a bit paranoid about doing sleeves in the round. Unfortunately they can't be dodged for the refined raglan pattern from Interweave Winter '06 so I wanted to have every size on hand in order to somehow fudge my way into gauge. I think I'll have to leave this project behind, so sad...

I will, however be taking the fishtail lace socks back with me (they're second transatlantic flight since I started them way back in August when I was last in the UK), and goddamit, I will finish them. Since I've actually been wearing the other socks I made our of Regia yarn, I've been dying to get these things off the needle and onto my feet. I love this yarn!!

I'm a loser, baby.

So lame.

The end of year activities have swallowed my knitting life. I have a rotation project to wrap up and present to the lab on Monday. I have Holiday parties to go to. I have masses of lab work still to do. My head may well explode.

No knitting. No Odessa for the handmade gift swap. I tried and failed several times to initiate a new handmade gift, but these futile attempts were usually begun at midnight and ripped out by quarter past. I am terrible.

But, I am/was prolific at one point. Remember these guys? Oh and this! I still have it somewhere..... Heh, they'll do! Now if I can only remember where I stashed them....

Evil-Eyed Odessa

The Sit N' Knit New York Christmas Party is fast approaching, and as part of the festivities we're having a handmade gift swap. The rules are that we have to make something handmade (duh!) and that it has to cost us nothing. As luck would have it, I had a couple of balls of left over Knit Picks Merino style from Alice in the Storm colourway that I thought would make a lovely Odessa Hat.

I'm watching you watching me.....

Unfortunately I think my gauge was a little bit bigger than called for and even on my enormous noggin that hat is a little bit big. Oh dear, looks like I accidentaly made myself a hat (did I mention that it's a bit brass monkeys around here?) and have the oh so tedious task of knitting this neat pattern again for the party.

*sigh*

How will I cope?

It's all gone a bit wrong...

I started knitting the Marseilles pullover. I swatched, oh yes I did, but once I figured in all those cables my gauge went to hell in a handcart. Plus I forgot to start garter stitch inside the big diamond and I'm convinced this yarn is too fuzzy for cables. I think there will be some frogging before too long.

So I thought I might just swatch up the purple yarn for the supernova pullover. Awesome, drop the needles size down to 4.5mm instead of 5mm and Bob's your uncle! Until of course you try knitting those circular motifs and all sense of fairness in the world disappears. Why are my circles 5 1/2" inches in diameter and not 4 1/2"? Why mommy, why? I think the designer has measuring problems because this isn't the first pattern I've heard of with motif-sizing issues. I'll try dropping down to a 4mm needle before I take drastic measures and start skipping rows. ETA: While blogger was crapping around with pictures, I tired on the 4mms, still over 5" in diameter. Norah, you're smokin' crack m'dear.

And finally, I've contracted some kind of vile stomach bug which has left me dying in a pool of you don't want to know what. My insides are all twisted in a bunch and I can barely stand let alone walk about. I'm on my third day of pain and poop. If it carries on much longer I'll be going to the doctors, that is if I can stay away from the bathroom long enough to walk the 8 blocks there. Ugh. Anyway, when I e-mailed one of my classmates to tell him I was still sick, this was the response I got :

yea get better please please please. if you need anything at all, dont hesitate to call yo. should you not make it, a monument will be erected at the street gate... like the colossus of rhodes but the Misplaced of Pom. the materials have not been finalized yet, but the committee is leaning towards that yarn stuff. we'll use photos from the halloween party as models, when you were most yarn-like. you will be immortal-- or as long as yarn will weather the elements. feel better.

Great. My monument is going to be made out of acyrlic.

Here's something that did go right this weekend, my finally finished Red Scarf project Scarf. Can you believe I knitted an entire sweater inbetween starting and finishing this? OH well, it's completed and it's neat. CABLES!!!