just a quick update before i leave for new york for the marathon tomorrow morning. the ribby pullover is done!!! and it's true, in knitting, the 4th try is a charm. i got the neck to look good and i'll be taking the sweater with me to make it's debut in the big apple. also finished the baskin robbins/neopolitan skinny scarf. it's reeeeeeeally long!!!! it hits the ground if i don't wrap it around my neck a gazzillion times. and my gift scarf that i'm giving to my new york hostess is going to get finished on the flight. i also realized that I DON'T HAVE ANY KNIT HATS!!!!! sure, i've made plenty for others, but i don't have one myself. so i'm bringing along some chunky noro omichian (sp?) and i'm going to make the ribbed hat from the new stitch and bitch book that i bought at the lys today. also bringing along the yarn for the christmas pilows i'm making. sounds like a lot of yarn, but after the marathon, all i'll really be able to do that night is lay on the couch and knit. sorry i don't have any pictures to update, but definitely when i get back!!!!
and a huge "break a leg" to miss glampyre stef who will be defending her dissertation in baltimore while i'm on the plane!!!!!!!
finally, the ribby pullover is done, well sort of......
notice how it's still attached to its ball of yarn. this is because i can't get the neck straight. the first time, it was WAY TOO BIG, so i redid the decreases, but then i COULDN'T GET IT OVER MY HEAD!!!! now it goes over my head, but the neck is still just shaped funny. it goes too high and doesn't scoop enough in the front. do they ever say "4TH TRY IS A CHARM?" here's how the funky neckline looks now.......
so i'm putting it down for a second, especially since it's 85 degrees right now. but i'll probably finish it over the weekend and wear it when i'm in new york next week. in the meantime, i'm jumping on the skinny scarf band wagon. here's a swatch i did with all the colors. i'm crocheting this one which goes much faster for me.
i'm using a baskin robbins ice cream color combo of browns and pinks. here's two rows into it. looks like an octopus......
and finally, look at what i just couldn't resist at the lys today!!!!!! it's called "nature's spectrum" by brown sheep. the colorway is "desert tapestry". i'm going to make a multi-directional scarf for my friend who's hosting me in new york. should knit up pretty quick on #10.5 needles.
lots to do before i leave!!! on the plane. i'm gonna start the christmas gifts.
oh, it's just been a sad, sad week. one intervention and one who never got an intervention. he never knew how much we loved him. he couldn't, or he wouldn't have bailed like he did. i just hope there's some peace for him now. margaret cho put it best in her blog yesterday. where will all the sad kids go now...........
my mom rescued this little thang from the construction yard at her company. they figured he hadn't eaten in about 2 weeks, and he only weighed 3 pounds when they took him to the vet!!!!! so now he's got her wrapped around his petite little paws. he shivers like a typical chihuahua, but my mom is convinced that he's cold. meanwhilw we're only experiencing a record heatwave here in cali. so she called me at work the other day to tell me she thinks that i should knit him a sweater. so i picked this little pattern from stacey joy. should only take me one night to whip one up. check out the gallery of chihuahua sweaters.
oh, his name you ask??? it's ignacio, after the saint and the mexican revolutionary, "nacho" for short. unfortunately, i have two bigger, much much bigger, dogs who view nacho as exactly that, a movie snack. so we can't keep him. it's gonna break my mom's heart to see him go.
it's sunday morning, 6am. i'm putting out the mile markers along the park in santa monica for my runners' 10 mile run. quickly pulled over, put on the hazards, and hopped out with my final stake and sign. i noticed a sort of bummy, long-haired looking guy walking briskly towards my direction, so i held on to the stake tightly. quickly turned around, stake in hand, to see JUDD NELSON in my face!!!!!!! "MORNING!!!" he yelled as he quickly went by. no chance to tell him how much i loved his performance in perhaps one of my favorite teen movies, "the breakfast club", or that i regularly watch him in the 12:30am re-runs of "suddenly susan" if i'm vigorously into whatever i'm knitting that night. and of course no picture.......
in knitting news, i'm done with the ribby pullover!!!! i'm not happy with the way the neck came out due to my gauge recalculations. i'll probably redo it tonight. it's all seamed up though and otherwise fits perfectly!!! photo coming soon.......
so here's all the parts to the ribby pullover. they'll all get put on one long circular needle and then finished all at once with raglan decreases. check out the weird zig zag striping that happened on the tops of the sleeves. they won't be noticable once the sleeves are wrapped around my arms. oooooh, and i can't wait for that. this yarn is so soft!!!! it's been described as a roving yarn. i'm not up with the yarn spinning terminology, but it looks like it was made out of a bunch of lint and doesn't have a ply to it. it also breaks easily and if i pulled the yarn too hard while knitting, the yarn would split just like that. looks like i'll be getting a lot done on this in the next few days because NOW I'M SICK!!!!! THIS IS NOT GOOD. I CANNOT BE SICK 3 WEEKS BEFORE THE NEW YORK CITY MARATHON!!!!!!! what is it, starve a cold and feed a fever??? doesn't matter, i have both.........
first, i don't understand why we still celebrate this holiday, but whatever, i'm still at work this morning. head over to bonne marie's and read about her experience covering the chicago marathon. i got nostalgic reading it!!! i ran my first marathon in chicago. what a great race, great town, great day it was. and while my compatriots were running in chicago yesterday, i ran the half marathon in long beach, my last long training run before the new york marathon in just a few weeks!!!! i definitely went out too fast and felt it midway through, but my timing was pretty consistent. i'm still suffering from achiles tendonitis and am a little worried for new york, but i'll power through it however i have to.
i got a massage immediately after and then came home and crashed out for a few hours. spent the evening knitting on the sleeves for the ribby pullover and watching k street. wooo it's starting to get good!!!! and i'm just a few inches away from putting the sleeves and front and back panels all on one needle to start the raglan portion at the top. 10/13/2003.
Friday, October 10, 2003
NOTHING UP THESE SLEEVES.....YET.
here's the start to the ribby pullover sleeves. i'm glad i decided to do both at one time. it helps with doing the increases and rows exactly identical. i've heard too many stories about sleeves coming out different lengths. hopefully this will prevent that. they're going pretty fast. i'm about half way through and then they get joined with the front and the back all on one circular to start doing the raglan top.
when it became clear last night at around 8:30 pm that some wacko, austrian, womanizing, hitler lover is now going to run my state, i tried to deny it all by turning on the marlins vs. the cubs game 1. after all, i was working on my ribby pullover, so it was only fitting that i be there in spirit for our #1 cubs fan and knitter extraordinaire. i got in just at the bottom of the 9th. the cubs were down by one and there were two outs. up came my main man, sammy, and the game was tied!!!!! i was starting to feel like there was mabye going to be some redemption after all. but alas, the cubs lost it in a valiant effort after 11 innings. instead of biting my nails through it all, i powered through the back of the ribby. i'd post a picture,but it looks exactly like the one i posted yesterday. next up, the sleeves..........
given the impending doom here in cali, it's nice to know that good deeds stiil abound. if you've got an extra scarf you've made or want to practice a new stitch and help warm someone else's heart at the same time, check out get crafty's annual scarf drive.
i vegged all day yesterday trying to recover from a long day of coaching on saturday. i sat down to work on poncho villa, but i just wasn't feelin' it. seems as though it's driving sharlyn a little nutty too. you'd think it would knit up really fast on #15s but quite the contrary. the ggh "relax" yarn which i used to replace the ggh "esprit" that the pattern calls for is well, FRUSTRATING!!! now i've worked with furry stuff before, but this one's on a particularly thin thread of yarn. at any rate it was going too slow for the progress i wanted to be making. i'm about a third of the way into it
and yesterday was the first day that it started to feel chilly!!! now, out here in la la land, "chilly" is relative, but i suddenly felt the urge to bust this out to work on with a vengeance. the ribby pullover. i finished the front panel and started on the back. then i'll do the two sleeves at once. then it all gets joined in the round for the raglan decreases. just the opposite of the top down raglan pattern.
monica, 33, single
photographer / running coach
live in los angeles
2 dogs, ella (lab) and ruby (dobi)
learned to knit when i was 7, but recently picked it up again in december 2002
...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
i've thought about this one before. i'd call the restaurant "whateva's cleva" and change the menu every day with all my favorites including, mexican, indian, soul food, veggie friendly, etc.
...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?
yarn, duh!!!!!
...wrote a book, what genre would it be?
biographies are my favorite, but i can't imagine that my own would be a top seller. probably a crime story.
...ran a school, what would you teach?
tolerance
...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?
oh, again, that's a difficult one. i'm a musical schizophrenic. some punk, some funk, some metal, some rap, and at least one sappy love song
how come this little pixie never looks like me????
