OUCH!

I’m not sure but I think I may have a knitting related injury. Several weeks ago, my left thumb was aching for apparently no reason. The day before, I had worked for several hours on my Charlotte’s Web shawl. Darling Fiancé joked that I may have “knitters thumb” (very original huh?), I did think, “Maybe I had overdone it with the knitting”. I noticed that the thumb and index finger on my right hand kept falling asleep as I was knitting, so maybe I was stressing the left thumb as well.

I picked up Charlotte yesterday morning to get in a few rows before leaving for work. I hadn’t touched her since before going to Vegas. Again, as I was knitting the right thumb and index finger kept falling asleep (that feeling of pins and numbness is horrible). Then by yesterday afternoon, the left thumb was aching, I couldn’t grab a glass without having a horrible pain. Last night I rubbed “tiger balm” down the thumb before bed; it is much better today, just a slight ache.

It’s very peculiar, the numbness and pain does not occur when I knit anything else. I’ve been working on other projects the last few weeks with no side effects. I knit for 2 hours on the plane Friday and was fine. Yet, ½ hour on Charlotte, and I miserable.

Here is my best guess on why this is happening. I am TERRIFIED of dropping stitches on Charlotte. I have never done lace before and honestly do not know if I could properly pick up a dropped stitch in a lace pattern. This has never ever been a concern before, I know what knit and purl stitches look like, I’ve picked up stitches before without batting an eye, heck I’ve even purposely dropped stitches down as far down as 10 rows to fix a mistake. As a result of my fear of dropping stitches on charlotte as I get further and further into it, increasing stitches, I think I am clutching the needles harder then normal. This is the only explanation. I may go home tonight and check my gauge again, I’d bet I’m tightening up. Oh well….
Other then that life is going pretty well.

I'm Back (with pictures)

Back from a few days in sunny, Las Vegas on the company dollar. The user conference I was attending turned out to be less then informative, but never decline a free trip on the company, and overall it was a very nice few days.

Vegas is sensory overload, everything looks so over the top. I didn't know where to begin. Now, I live just across the Hudson river from Manhattan, I'm in Manhattan at least once a week and Vegas is like nothing I've ever seen. The first night we were there Tim took me to the "Venetian hotel" I've seen pictures of this place with the gondolas and painted sky ceiling I was still awed. My dad was right, when you walk into that place you have no idea what time of day it is. We were put up at the Mirage hotel and casino, most famous for Siegfried & Roy. It was lovely.



I've never been to Vegas before and there was so much to see, I didn't get to see half of what was there. One of the highlights though was the fountain display at the Bellagio hotel. I got there Wednesday night while Tim played in a poker tournament. I watched the display twice, I could have stood there all night though.



Yesterday, we had a late flight back so my fiance and I were able to see the "secret garden" of Siegfried and Roy which is a white tiger/lion and dolphin habitat. It was a nice quick tour. Here are one of there dolphins and a sleeping kitty. I love the kitties.




I brought some knitting but didn't do any during the day or night. I was strickly knitting on the plane rides coming and going home. Going out there I finished up the "mistake rib" scarf I'd been working on. Coming home I started working another booga bag. I had a very nice talk with one of the stewardesses on the flight back about knitting, So, if you see this Hi Pat!






I was all excited when I checked my e-mail today. While I was away I got the info on my Knitters Review Secret Pal. I can't wait to start spoiling her.

That's about all for an update, I'm very tired and need to catch up on my sleep.

Hello, Goodbye

Just a quick hello and goodbye.

I'm leaving in a little while for a business trip. They are sending me and a co-worker to a conference in Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas! I've never been there and my darling fiance is coming so this should be a lot of fun.

We'll only be gone till Saturday, but it's still nice to get away from the office.

Summer leaving a chill

I am so cold right now; this is starting to get out of hand. It is slightly chilly here today, right now it only in the upper 50’s for some reason though, my office is like an icebox. I have no windows in the fishbowl I work in, I don’t have a radiator in this room, and the only ventilation is from the HVAC unit which blows down from the vent above me. Yes, they have the A/C on today. Oh my kingdom for some heat. I just ran out to the car and grabbed a sweater and sweatshirt. One I’m wearing, the other is draped over my legs trying to keep in some heat. One would think that the offices of a company that installs and maintains HVAC units would be a temperature controlled environment, but not here. No sir, there never seems to be a happy medium, just very hot or freezing cold. Oh well…

Would it be inappropriate to keep a lap blanket in my room for when it gets like this? In the winter, I always keep fingerless gloves in here for the days my hands get too cold. Would the blanket be over the top? I think I’ll make one anyway.

It was a crazy weekend with a good deal of rain. I didn’t have much time at home so I didn’t get any laundry or packing done. That means I have to cram it all into tonight, I don’t have too much packing to do since we’ll only be in Las Vegas 3 nights, but I always over pack.

I’m up to the fourth color on Charlotte, and she looks really good. I afraid to take her to Vegas, maybe I’m just overreacting, but I have horrible luck. With my luck I’d pack her and then have the suitcase searched and her come undone, or I could take her on the plane. I could switch her from my addi’s to Denise then I probably wouldn’t have a problem. Uggghhhh… Maybe I’ll just cast on for Rogue and take that with me. I’ve got a 5 plus hour flight, and I need to keep busy since I hate flying. I’ll come up with something tonight.

Scarf

As promised here are a few pictures of the Quickie scarf, modeled by my lovely little sister.

I swear the yarn made me do it.

Last night I'm in my bedroom reading "interweave crochet" and minding my own business when I hear this tiny voice.

"Heather? Heather?"

I look over and there is a ball of Lamb's pride Bulky yarn in "Turkish Olive" Peering out of my stash box.

"Knit me" it says.

"No, no I replied", my lovely Charlotte is right over there and I will not work on anything else right now, that would be neglect."

"Neglect?", replies the lamb's pride "You want to talk about neglect, last winter you knitting me and my pal into a 31/2 foot scarf then frogged us and wrapped us into these balls. You haven't looked at us since."

"Your right, your right" I replied.

So I grabbed the largest needles I have (size 35) Held 2 strands of the lamb's pride bulky together and casted on six stitches and just started doing a simple garter scarf. Three hours later, I have an approx. 7 foot scarf. This morning I added some fringe, and Ta Da: A rather nice looking, Very QUICK, finished Christmas gift.

Pictures of said scarf to come.

And the Charlotte goes on..

I've been able to get somemore work done on charlotte this weekend. The missing skein of Koigu was found, and progress is going slow but steady. Knitting has been quite meditative this weekend, and I've needed it as a few memorials are being held this weekend, in honor of a friend who passed on last week.

Just a short update for now. Keep knitting!

Fall Knitty

The fall edition of Knitty is out and I'm impressed.

I'm completely in love with blaze. I think I need to kick my knitting up a notch to get through a few projects projects on back burner. Darling future hubby doesn't want me buying any more yarn, however, if I finish some big projects I can justify it. I wish I had two extra hands.

Koigu, Koigu where are you?

"O where O where has my Koigu gone
O where O where can it be?
It's a skein of yarn
that's made of wool
O where of where can it be?"


I had picked up Charlotte last night after not touching her since last week and am merrily knitting along when till I got 4 rows from where I would begin the 3rd color. I stop to get my 3 remaining skeins only to find, one is missing.

I thought all three where in the bag with the pattern but they weren't. I'm worried, but not too worried. My room looks like a small tornado came through it. The darling fiance was helping me clean out my closet Sunday because I was complaining about not having room for clothing. He found that I keep my stash in two drawers of my dresser and said, "No wonder you can't fit clothes in here." This started two projects. One was me going through my dresser and closet and getting rid of old clothing I'll never where again. While he started to move my stash into a plastic container for storage. He gently let me know he thinks I have plenty of yarn and that I shouldn't need to buy anymore for a while. I think the missing skein of koigu wandered off during the cleaning efforts. I took the yarn for Charlotte and put it on the bed telling him not to touch that yarn since it was for my current project. It's not in the plastic container with the rest of the stash. It may be in a box buried by the bed. I guess I'll be finishing up the cleaning effort tonight to find it.

Here is a picture on Charlotte as she currently stands. The lighting in this room does not do justice to the colors of this yarn. The MIA skein is mostly a lovely lilac color.

Wow Tuesday already

Goodbye summer, where did you go?

This weekend was a little on the hairy side. I finished up work Friday and treated myself to a nice manicure and pedicure. I took my mom out to the mall, and wound up finding a Tiara there. I was so excited. I just need to order my veil, and my bridal attire is complete.

Saturday night my fiance and I found out that a friend is in the hospital after being in a fire. He is in pretty bad shape, we went to visit the last two days. Everyone is keeping there fingers crossed, lighting candles and saying prayers that he will pull through okay.

That's it. Just a short update.

Days of my worklife

Welcome to day three of "Days of my worklife", otherwise known as what else can go wrong at work. Things have been crazy this week. One of the two bosses is out, our billing clerk is out, and one of our payroll girls is out. Where does this leave me? Well, I'm taking care of some of the bosses regular duties (along with a list of crap), trying to keep an eye on the billing department (and sweating that all will not be well when our billing manager gets back from maternity leave in a week)and I'm now helping out in payroll.. AGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about that sometimes you just need to scream. I want to go knitting at Barnes and Noble tonight but I'm not sure I'm going to get there. I didn't get home till past 7 on Monday and I really have to get a dent into the billing filing. I've also been in quite a foul mood when I have been getting in. Maybe I should just skip it again. I'll see how the day progresses.

Charlotte in Progress

I casted on for Charlotte this weekend and I’m well into the second color to about row 50. This is my first lace project. It’s not too bad so far, I did have to rip out and start over twice, but now that everything has clicked into place, it’s pretty smooth. I love working with this yarn, and this pattern.

Finally some breathing room

The last two weeks have been hell. It started with the passing of a very close family friend, who left behind a wife and two very small children. His police funeral was the saddest thing I have ever been to, and most of my family was quite numb for several days. Beyond that, work has been kicking my butt. We had some corporate auditors in last week which involved my boss giving me various tasks of running around gathering information for them and this week 3 co-workers are away so I'm helping out picking up the slack, in addition to my own work of course. Finally there is light at the end of the tunnel and I see breathing space, yesterday in particular was a perfect day combining work and knitting.

My boss had signed the two of us up for a IRS/SSA seminar in Manhattan. I had assumed it was an all day affair until I was leaving work on Tuesday, he handed me the paperwork I was going to need, and said "it ends at 1pm tomorrow, and we're not coming back here afterward. See you there."

I had a lovely trip into the city, arrived about an hour early, sat in starbucks right near the federal building the seminar was being held at and quietly sipped coffee while reading "Zen and the art of knitting".

The seminar was quite boring,what do we expect from the IRS and Social Security but we were finished by 1pm. Eugene asked if I was heading back to NJ and I replied no I was going up to 14th street. So he suggested lunch. We hoped in a cab up to Union Square and had a lovely lunch in an outdoor cafe. When we were done, he left for home reminding me "remember when we get in tomorrow, it was a all day seminar." I laughed, waved and heading down to knit New York.

It was there that I was finally able to get the yarn for my Charlotte. Huzzah!!!!
I had found 4 lovely colors and was hesitate on the fifth, a lovely girl that worked there was trying to help me find the 5th. I picked one and she went down to get me my yarn. She came back up and had found a different color(not displayed on the floor) that went with the original four better. I sat down, did some knitting and then rounded off the day by meeting up with my darling fiance.

All and all a well earned day of relaxing. On that note I'm off to shower and head to work.

Random stuff.

Friday night I started to cast on for Rogue, didn't like my cast on row, ripped it out, and did not recast. Instead I started a scarf yesterday. It may turn into a X-mas gift for one of my cousins.

While driving to my fiance's yesterday I saw something odd. Well odd for driving in the NYC area. There was a truck pulling an animal trailer, I assumed there was a horse in there until we both got off the highway. At our first traffic light i'm looking and realize it was a llama. A llama is not something you see everyday in the Bronx, I can only guess they were heading for the zoo. Like a good knitter though i'm looking at the fur on this llama and thinking "what great yarn that would make".

Pictures

Technology has decided to cooperate with me tonight and I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of my latest finished objects.

Here is the "Shapely Tank" from hell.



In all honesty is wasn't that bad of an experience. It was my first adult size sweater/tank object. The basic construction was simple enough. I learned to be more careful when picking up stitches around necklines. I learned my sister is a heck of a lot smaller than I originally thought, and I finally have gotten the knack for neat seaming.

Here is my other recently finished object. The "French Market Bag" from the fall 03 Knitty. This one seemed to take forever to make because I kept throwing it on the backburner. This bag is super simple to make and cascade 220 is a dream to felt. That is indeed a Teddy bear sitting in the bag, that is the "Birthday Bear" my fiancé sent me in May. Awwww.......



That's it for now.

Techno Woes

Technology is not being good to me. My cable modem has been losing its connection on and off over the last several weeks. The cable company claims it is not there fault but is the wiring in the house. Until I can have the situation rectified, I'm stuck. If that weren't bad enough, my digital camera is acting up. I have pictures to post of some completed projects and I cannot retrieve them off the camera. I may have a bad memory card.

I was at the family reunion all weekend, so didn't have the time or patience to cast on for Rogue. That's to come this week hopefully.

Tickets….

I got my R.E.M. tickets. 6th row center stage, I’m very happy, VERY HAPPY. Those are the best seats for a full concert I’ve ever had.

Off knitting topic for just a minute.

R.E.M. announced this weekend the dates and venues for there upcoming tour. Ahhhh….. Life feels so good when R.E.M. is coming to town. Fanclub tickets go on Sale tomorrow at 1pm.

More Yarn

My search for Koigu is again in vain, only a few days after my escapade in NYC I tried the one decent store in my area for Koigu. I went in looking and the owners daughter asked if I needed help, and then she recognized me from last time I was there about a month ago. She let me know that they still hadn't gotten the shipment in, but it should be in by October. ((SIGH))

So, I turned my attention toward Rogue. I had toyed with the idea of making it with Cascade, but since said store didn't carry it I looked around a bit. I found some Jamieson shetland double knitting. The gauge is 22-26 st per 4 inches on size 4-6. Rogue calls for 18 per 4 or 4.5 per inch. I was fairly certain that if I swatched on size 7 needles I would be close, the salesgirl looked at me like I had 4 heads when I asked for her opinion, she said "no the yarn states 22-26 stiches for 4 inches on size 4-6 needles, you won't be able to get 4.5 stitches an inch". (By the way I think someone on the Rogue knit-a-long did use this yarn). The conversation went back and forth between me and the sales girl regarding whether I'd be able to get swatch this to the right gauge. Long story short, I bought the yarn in black, my gauge on the 7's was PERFECT, and I will never ask for help in that particular store ever again.

Now here's an interesting story for you. On the drive home from the yarn store. I received a call from an old "friend" of mine. This person never calls unless she wants something and tonight was no different. Apparently she's looking for a copy of a pattern I have. In the course of our conversation, we were talking about yarns. She was commenting on some Koigu in her stash and how she used it before and didn't like it. I asked her what she made with it and why she didn't like it. She told she made a booga bag with it, I said "you mean with the yarn from me" she said yeah. I had extra skeins of Kureyon from an ebay auction I won and she wanted 3 so I sold them to her. I told her Koigu and Kureyon were not the same yarn, she said they were from the same company, I said no they weren't, and then a comment came from her about her not caring because she was not a yarn snob. Our conversation ended a few minutes later and as I hung up it dawned on me.. I think she was implying that I was a yarn snob!

I called up my fiance (He knows this women) and told him the story. He started laughing, I said "what is so funny?" he replied, "You know she just implied your a yarn snob?" I'm glad I amuse him. Actually the situation is sort of funny especially if you know the person in question. Oh well, I'm an equal oppurtunity knitter and proud of it.

Finally

It's finally done. After me putting it off and putting it off, I finally finished seeming the shapely tank for my sister. I completed it tonight while over at my uncles house. Of course everyone looked at it and reminded me of how it is too big for the sister in question. Oh well... At least its not unwearable. I also finished off the french market bag today at work and felted it before heading over to the uncle's. Cascade 220 is great to felt with, and the bag came out looking great. It only need one cycle in the wash, anymore and it would have been too small for anything. It's kind of funny right now while wet, it smells like a dead animal. I hope it's okay when it's dry.