Monday, May 18, 2009


My walk home from work ...

Riverside T stop

The Commonwealth Avenue Mall
(Phillis Wheatley)



The Public Garden

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Sneakers


Addidas Supernova Cushion

Unfortunately the meaning of the word sale will forever remain a mystery. So will the the idea behind bargain.. discount.. deal and price reduction. I always buy the most expensive thing I can find and "find" is not correct here because one who does not look cannot find!! These were $94.99 at Marathon Sports. Of course the salesperson made me walk to determine the perfect shoe for my foot.. I probably could not get the same service at zappos.com

Monday, February 2, 2009

Project #14 Ciclamino

This is another hat. I looked up ciclamino which really is Cyclomen plant in Italian which I also had to look up and to my small disappointment the plant looks nothing like this yarn. But .. I love this yarn. It's a rope but sometimes it has color and makes it so cute to knit with. I need to do 5" again but I was not told not to come back this time.

3rd
Miserable. I did not use the odd yarn when I started knitting the hat and hat to pick up stitches from the cast on end which was pure hell and took hours. I ended up with 107 stitches.. instead of 108. I will be wondering forever where #108 went because it does not look like I dropped it. I don't know. My fingers hurt a lot.

8:58 PM
I want to know how I ended up with 2 balls of yarn.. I only had one.

10:16 PM
I found stitch #108. It was on the side by itself as suspected. I am not sure what to do with it since there is not an equivalent I can knit it together with. Exhausted. This opening photo is an embarrassment. Where is the odd yarn?!!

4th
I am sick. I assume it's because I spent some time on a metal chair yesterday and there was no heat in the room but could be another reason. Besides my fingers hurt so much I can barely type. I took out the brown string from the hat but now I have to figure out what she had in mind by doing it the way she did. Like why did we decrease 2 rows "in a row"? Anyway.. I should just do something on my own. I have all the info which is decrease to 80 and then the decrease itself. Someone was sewing yesterday.. like a garter part and the instructor said "It took me years to figure that out" and I really wanted to know what "that" was but was too tired to open my mouth.

Technical:
If you double the lining in knitting you can put all sorts of stuff behind it.. like hide strings and pull through if you need yarn for sewing and it happens to be on the other side. Like for the ear flaps on my hat.. there are a billion strings inside. I like that.

5th
Sick.. very. I was so excited about this hat and I made such a mess out of it. This is like the 5ht time I am undoing something on it. I feel like the yarn I am using does not want to be a hat at all if that makes any sense at all. I called the instructor today and she sounded sick too. I wonder why. Love the way I said 5th above.

8:55 PM
I am reading the above and it's like the diary of an abused knitter.. I pulled out the brown string out again. I have no idea what she had in mind. I should really get a mind of my own because I was not thrilled with the way we handled my mom's hat where the gray met the multi but possibly there is not a better solution.

2:24 AM
Sick.

7th
Better. I had 102.9F.. Back to torturing hat. I definitely am not doing the brown line. It's too thin.. but then so is the place where we connected the 2 pieces but I do not want to increase that space more then needed.

6:03 PM
I am putting a lot of effort into trying to disobey my instructor but have not come up with anything decent. Let's see.. I decreased on the purl side but I know I am not supposed to do that for some unknown reason so I undid that.. then I tried to knit with this tiny piece hanging off the side so I could decrease on the knit side even though I knew it was not enough ... it was not enough .. undid that, then I tried to use one multi and one red and then did not like the red and now I am going to use one brown and one multi and decrease on the right. I think all these useful activities raised my temperature back up. "Raised temperature back up.." that's redundant. This poor hat. If it ever gets done one day it will separate in half exactly at the place where I am at now. I am certain of it.

6:56 PM
Reading into the instructor's mind..
I think she pulled the string through the inside of the hat so I would not knit it by accident. And then like I could use it to sew later. That's all it was. I could not figure this out for the life of me since like Tuesday night. Brain .. where art though.. I don't even know where that is from.. maybe like a Shakespearian play?

7:38 PM
I cut the yarn. If you have one ball and you need to use double yarn the instructor pulls another end out of the "end" and uses one from the beginning and one from the end. She says unrolling everything and re-rolling is a waste of time.. however I have not learned how to knit like that without getting absurdly tangled. I just spent the past hour trying to unravel the current set up which is one from end one from the beginning. I don't know how she does it. The yarn is twisty by design so this setup just allows for more twists and tangles. I am 99 F again. I swear it's this hat.

9:38 PM
I think I am going to run out of yarn. Now what.

8th
3:15 AM
Coffee. I undid everything and did the brown yarn except I doubled it so now I have this huge puffy rim around the hat. I kind of like it but I feel if the instructor takes one look at it she will have a fit and justly so. I don't think this is what she had in mind. The idea was to use another yarn so I would have enough multi to finish the hat but this brown belt gave me 3 more rows aka maybe 1/3 of an inch which is not enough. Let me clarify this.. the above was my idea. Her idea was to have a nice hat.

10:49 PM
Have not gotten anywhere with this hat. I am back to where I left off a week ago.. not sure what to do after the bottom rim. I am wondering about the number 3. On Masha's hat I had to rib for 3 rows, here I had to do brown which I did not do which was K, K, P for 3 which is I think reverse garter. I wonder what reverse garter is all about and what 3 is all about because you end up on the wrong side of the item?

Sigh ..

9th
Brown line

OK. I ran out of yarn again with the brown line. I barely have 5" and I need 5 1/2 and then to decrease. Why does she make the line in garter? Why not stockinette. This garter thing totally reminds me of a king. I don't know why. I feel silly saying it here because the above does not remind me of a king but the garter line always reminds me of a king's crown. I actually just Googled crowns and believe it or not I cannot find one with a garter line on it but something in it still reminds me of the king. Now it's going to bother me. I feel like the next hat I make should be a crown. That would be cute. We can stick buttons on it. Instructor will love that.

11:51 PM

Color in blur..

I am missing all the funny things on Jay Leno.

10th
7:20 PM
Went in today. Instructor told me to use Malabrigo together with the above yarn and it looked good at first but then I realized that we totally took away this yarn's self striping personality. It made me sad. So now I am doing the top as a single yarn which defeats the original purpose of making the top of the hat another texture. I spent several hours today turning my self made double stranded yarn back into single. Tired. Still very weak from the flu. My brown line is perfect now.. done on #6.. how can it not be? Now I have to do 2 1/2 inches on #6 with 108 stitches per row. The brown line is reverse stockinette and not reverse garter. If you think about it reverse garter makes no sense whatsoever since it's the same on all sides.. as in both sides. I don't know why you cannot say purl instead of reverse stockinette to avoid massive confusion.
8:55 PM
I just realized that the yarn self stripes only if you start from the beginning. If you start from the end of the ball it stripes but not like it supposed to.

11th
12:35 AM
Not loving the decrease. I have to redo it the question is how? The hat has waves again. We had this on Masha's but I thought it was because we ran out of yarn. On my hat we did not have that but we had a weird decrease. Other then that .. I am happy with the hat. It's cute and the brown circle looks nice. I just saw The Crew of US Airways Flight 1549 on David Letterman whom I never watch. What a great group of people.. "brace for impact"

2:20 AM
Look at this time. I undid some of the decrease up to where I knitted 2 together. I am thinking maybe she likes this wavy decrease. It does look nice on the fake styrofoam head.. just not on mine. However I am not sure I should be left with like 20 stitches at the top. The hat is very cute and it's just simple. She did a good job. I have no idea where to sew it at the top. I tried and like had no idea where to put the needle in plus I am still haunted by this start motion technique.


7:27 AM
Almost done. Now just the finishing although the finishing photo will not look any different from the above. I need a longer project otherwise the photo amount becomes overwhelming even to me.

12th
Left a message for the instructor yesterday about the 15 stitches left at the top. She said she has to see this hat. I am really wondering why? I feel like between her expertize and my expertize we could have figured something out on the phone.

14th
I went to see the instructor yesterday. She said the hat was too short. That I have to undo until the 1st decrease, measure and then use up all my yarn that I have. I saw a man today in Whole Foods carrying a huge bouquet of red roses. The funny thing is minutes before that I saw him and found him somewhat attractive. This was before I saw the flowers. This sounds a little like the missed connection postings all over the world. I am going to stay in for the rest of the day.. this way I can avoid all the visuals. The color red generally reminds me of a hospital and only then I begin to think otherwise. Anyway back to knitting .. she told me to undo and measure but I just undid which was beyond stupid. Now what? I may as well kept it the way it was. I hate mathematical calculations and even the slightest insinuation that there may be calculations present makes me act like the above. How was I going to measure how much I had left? Anyway.. will just knit and waste time.. the usual.

4:41 PM
I used up everything I had.. on the hat and I mean everything. Now I have to bring it to the instructor since I have nothing to sew the hat with.

15th
I guess if you make the hat tall enough like more then 5.5 then it looks OK with the sudden decrease.

17th
Done. The instructor sewed most of it together. I wonder if I will ever be able to sew like her. She fixed a cable today and said that she will do the other one because it takes a lot out of her. Interesting. I only thought knitting took a lot out of me.. things like zippers and finishing that used to put me on the verge of a stroke.

End

PS..
I wonder if there will be #15 or anything else for that matter ... to be continued .. or not.

19th
Periodically I read this blog and I am in disbelief as to how nothing I knew about what I was talking about at all when it came to all the knitting references mentioned here. The very amusing thing is that not a single thing here makes sense maybe up until 2009.. not one! My instructor would be in stitches if she read any of this.. or more she would be like is this really one of my students?! can someone say comprehension? By the way I do not like the way the hat looks on my dad. It's not the right color and the top of his hat is pointy so the hat waves are extra wavy. I don't know if he likes it either. I will be sad if he does not.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Project #13


I was leaving the instructor said "You don't even know what's coming next!" I guess I will begin this entry with that quote and hope that the instructor lives up to those words. I made a tiny brown visor today for a hat that will have a visor as one of it's features. Anyway I am supposed to connect 2 pieces together but am not sure how to count the rows since one is right side up and one is up side down. Hmmm.. I never noticed that upside down was up-side-down. Interesting how I never notice anything.
12:13 AM
I counted 8 rows but there are loose pieces, like 4 on the side of the piece so I cannot put the sides together because those pieces will be inside and no one will be able to get to them ever again. I get lost around loose pieces. I never know where they are coming from, how tight to pull on them, which to tie together and how to weave them in. In terms of these I feel like they have to be cut off. They will make the visor bulky. Also one side has 76 stitches and the other 77 and no one showed me how to pick up stitches in this situation although there were plenty of opportunities! My fault also.. I should have demanded that I be shown. Anyway going to sleep. I hope it does not snow too much because I want to see what this hat is all about.

28th
I am making popcorn stitches. I forgot to do one so then I decided that I was going to perform what the instructor calls 'surgery' and make a popcorn after the fact and did. It looked B+ but it was not the same as the others so I had to undo an entire popcorn row. Anyway I am on popcorn row#2 and I am very impressed with myself. I did not try to stick the popcorns on the wrong side even though the minute they are made they automatically want to go there, I seem to wrap the yarn the correct way and I placed the popcorns where they should go in the pattern. They alternate from 7 to 6. This hat is really cute. I love the visor. It's so thick and puffy and the little popcorn things kind of match my eyes if stand a mile away. The instructor said I look like a radish today. She has a picture of a radish in her store. The radish is knitting. Don't ask. I am sure this is her idea of a compliment and I appreciate it as much as I can under the circumstances. Just kidding.
Bobble making ...
If introducing another color knit with the new color and put the knitted stitch back on the right needle otherwise continue below 1. Knit through the same loop five times going from front to back 2. Turn work around and purl the 5 stitches you just made 3. Turn work around, slip the first stitch onto the right needle purlwise and then k2tog twice and you should have 3 stitches left 4. Slip the 2nd stitch over the 1st purlwise and you are left with 2 5. Slip the 2nd over the first purlwise and you are done
Tip:
If the last stitch looks loose twist it a couple of times before slipping it over


30th
Sad. I have so much finishing on this hat, you name it, it's not done. A million loose strings from the bobbles on the inside.. sewing the hat.. sewing the ear pieces.. I learned how to do this cord. I think it's gimp butterfly but with yarn. The instructor did it for my shrug and tried to show me but I was not in the mood back then. She showed me three times today and I did not get it either.. so she let me be. I sat around sulking for 10 minutes and then I somehow started looking at it and got it. I knew the idea but I could not figure out the finger motion and like I still don't know how I figured it out. Maybe it's because I have seen it like 5 times before or maybe when I was 10 years of age I learned the butterfly at Camp Tevya? I really just cannot believe I got it. It's like I mimic her finger motion without knowing what the fingers really did if that makes any sense. I did it once before when I saw her pick up stitches without the crochet hook. I was able to repeat it.. not like it's a huge deal.
She was in a very weird mood today.. pretended to be interested but her mind was someplace else.. like really far. She said there will be room on her website for my blog. I am sure she did not mean this one.. I did not react. I blog how it is and like I don't know if that is client appropriate plus I am sure she will want to handle her own blog herself. I did one chord almost all by myself. I cannot spell. Anyway I looked like a true spinstress. Someone was looking at me make this rope and said they were fascinated by what I was doing. That always helps. Sad.

Cord.. blurry shot
Technical:
Decrease on hat was 10/19/19/19/10 and k2tog before / and ssk after the / until you could not continue anymore... then you did k2tog. I am still upset because I did not realize there were 9 left so I did k2tog on 1st 2 instead of slipping. We made some boggles on the decrease.. like knitted 2 sparkly ones together with the brown yarn.


11:55 PM
I tried on the hat. It's undone in the back and pinned with a stitch holder but I cannot see that from the front. From the front it's amazing. Today people were complimenting it somewhat but I was not responding because I like thought they were stating simple facts. I did some more of the cord but did not finish because I was twisting the 3 strings. I am sure I am not holding it the totally correct way. I tired sewing the hat but was not sure how to do that "star motion in and out" thing at the top so pulled everything out. Holes are my biggest fear in life at this point. I got a manicure the color of this hat yesterday. It was not a conscious decision since I was looking for my usual colorless and saw brown and wanted brown. I still cannot believe I learned that cord. I don't even know what to call it. It looks like I am weaving rope from 3 strings. I never thought I'd learn it. I used to feel about it the same way I feel about the star motion. I first saw the cord on January 6th of this year so it's been 24 days. I cannot wait until morning to take some photographs. I am a little concerned how the finishing will go. I am not coming in tomorrow since today really wore me out.. so Monday and again mood depending and I am not talking about my own. I really feel like it's time for a large project but I will need a benefactor for that. I keep thinking how the instructor said ".. it's my time and my expertize" I cannot seem to forget it.

31st
I tried the visor again today and used my scrap yarn from my dad's sweater. I did half of it and then was trying to figure out how both sides were connected together once it was done and could not figure it out. I even went as far as thinking that the instructor sewed it together while I was not paying attention. When I was done imagine my surprise when my visor was also together! Anyway I feel not very smart at all. I mean I finally got it but it was like a theorem and why is it a theorem for me when it's so obvious to her?



Ear Flaps

8:40 PM
I only wrote down the instructions for the visor and not the thing that goes around and I will never figure out how to do it in a million years. So much for writing patterns for the instructor for when she is famous. The mystery of the visor continues into Sunday morning.

8:47 PM
! I remembered. We knitted one side and then the other. I had to make sure the other side was the same. I just read that in my blog! Otherwise I never would have remembered this. This is why we had to use odd yarn on the side things because there were 2 sides to each side if that makes any sense. My night is complete. I would still like to redo this hat.. my brother's hat and the back of my Malabrigo where the cables separated. I don't remember that at all. I think the ear flaps were done like the visor.. short rows but I cannot remember how many. I still did not finish making cord #2. It really upsets me.. that and zippers and crocheted edges and tops of hats where you have to go in and out with the star motion.. and the starting of the sleeves... and the end when you are done sewing and you don't know where to end and the loose string .. so many things. The other day the instructor showed me this hat she made and she said the visor was round on the top and straight on the bottom and then the other way around and I did not understand anything. One more thing to think about. The hat was adorable. It had a button that was covered over with the yarn at the top. I don't even know how to do that. Do you use yarn or do you knit a piece and cover. I bet you knit a piece.

Feb 1st,
Technical:
I am going to do some notes on the visor because I do not want to hold a pen today.
1. When you make the 23stitch sides take the odd yarn out first and then connect the pieces otherwise it's a huge pain to take the odd yarn out once everything is connected
2. Count the stitches once you have everything connected
3. Fix the holes somehow in the connection part, I think she picked up stitches but I could not do it and left it
4. The loose ends can go inside the double piece if there is one
5. Count the stitches when you are done with the visor in the following way:
count the first-middle-last section on each of the sides so you can increase the one that is missing. For example one may be missing on the mid-section and then the visor will be off when you connect the 2 sides to make it double

6. There is a right side and a left side to the visor so you need to check for that before you knit them together at the top. When I did it at the store I thought the right side was the one that looked the neatest! Anyway.. I think the left side is where you can see the wrapped stitches for the short rows.

4:50 PM
I made the visor. You can turn it upside down to make another type of hat. But the visor is a little bit smaller so it's not the right size.
10:35 PM
Not sure what to do with the visor. Sad. Tried to make a hat out of it but destroyed it. Not sure on the design part.
2nd
Done!! This tie situation on the top of my head is not exactly there so this cord kind of ends up on my neck if I am not careful but still.. this is adorable. The assembly took forever. I could not sew back of the hat for some reason and made the instructor do it. She was thrilled as you can imagine and made me work on someone else's sweater. I had to slip stitches onto a needle and finish the row for someone else while she did the hat. I did not weave in any ends left over from the bobbles. I was not sure how to weave brown yarn into a purple sparkly one and make it not be visible on the other side?! As a result the inside of the hat looks a little disturbing with all these brown pieces of yarn drooping all over the place. I may need to revisit that whole thing and see what I can do. There was this whole process with the ear flaps.. you had to sew one side then pull the remaining string through onto the other side but not pull to tight because you had to use it to put together the other side. The instructor attached the flaps to the hat.. I am not sure how. She went under the braid and then went under the sticth on the earflap as if to knit.. I don't know what I am talking about. At some point I gave her something to sew and as I handed her the hat I decided to pull the tread out from the needle to make things easier for her.. not .. so she asked me why I did that and that made all the customers in the store laugh.
11:08 PM
You know what else.. she took the 3 yarn strands from the cord and put them inside the ear flap and did the same with the other side and this is how she attached the cord to the flap. This is totall rocket science of finishing .. whatever that means. I kind of want to post this blog on ravelry but how can I with all the rambling.. the mispellings and I believe somewhere in this I have 10 reasons why I want to kill my instructor which at this point do not make sense to anyone but me.

My hat

Bowtie

End

PS Of course I can never stop talking. Anyhow everyone looks at this hat.. any age and gender. I was in a Marshall's fitting room the other day and a girl complimented me on it.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Project #12


January 21, 2009
Started it today. I think I will draft and post when this is done. I have to do 2 rows in odd yarn, then 5 inches in d.g. a.k.a. dark gray left over from my mom's sweater. My only clues are.. 102(4) cast on stitches are divisible by 6 and that we are using my favorite yarn which is left over from my mom's sweater. It's Montova from Laines Du Nord.


I think I am only going back Tuesday since I am not allowed back until I have 5" and I only have 3.5" so far after spending a better part of the evening on this. I wonder how this is going to go. I have no clue what I would do with this never mind trying to guess the content inside her mind. I am working with Berocco Peruvia once again which I think is pure wool and I have to say I prefer Malabrigo... Overall so far I prefer Malabrigo over everything.

22nd
My instructor's website went up today. I am wondering if linking it to my blog would be a dis-service on my part? Not like anyone reads this anyway. Especially when it's still in 'draft' form.

26th
I am done. I had to undo 4 rows because I went over the 5". We removed the purple from the rim, I lost a stitch, the instructor picked it up but as a result I still lost one. Anyway, the way you remove odd yarn is you cut, and pull up, now I think I know what was done to my Malabrigo sweater!! Anyway, you pull, until you cannot do it anymore, and then you pick up stitches by removing the purple in my case thread. Then we folded the edge in half, and knitted it together. I had 103 stitches and 1 more that was extra. Then we decreased to 52 by slipping 2 stitches purl-wise and then slipping the 1st over the 2nd. Then we introduced the second yarn and had to decrease to 48 by knitting 2 together 4 times. Then I purled on RS and knitted on WS. Then the decrease was knit 5 knit 2tog.. then knit 4, knit 2 etc until I did knit 1 knit 2. I suspect I would have had knit 2 knit 2 but .. you guessed it I ran out of yarn. So then I pulled everything in and sewed it together. The double edge had to be sewn on the inside and on the outside so I went around. I had big plans of sewing it together all at once instead of in parts prior to. I swear my mind is twisted. The yarn ends were put back inside the double edge. Anyway, my mom took it outside to see if it's warm enough. It matches a sweater I made for her back in March 2008. Anyway it's a little short.. at least for me but mom said it fit. I feel like this hat has better tension then the sweater from March.

Close

Dent
Whole

26th
Asked the instructor why we did 52 to 48 and she said we had to get the gauge of the Montova otherwise my hat would have been one inch too wide.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Unsupervised


This is my 3rd independent knitting attempt. I am using Berroco Mohair Classic Heather which is discontinued, slightly painful to work with and does not yield the close to perfect results I tend to aim for regardless of what I do. I kind of feel like I should be doing this with cashmere which I have never used either and it is probably the most expensive yarn there is. The pattern called for Sandness Mohair from a Finnish yarn company and I kept misreading it as Sadness Mohair and like thinking what is that supposed to mean? This is a scarf by the way. I will probably get annoyed and destroy it before I am half way through but I wanted to post this as documentation of my struggle to wherever it is that I am going. I have to say I love the way the bottom came out.. it was knitted flat but looks curvy and the holes look decent but as a whole this looks messy and would benefit from another color.. white maybe?

January 19th, 2009


January 24th, 2009
I completed my knitting assignment and went back to working on this. I cannot seem to be able to get back on track. My instructor often says that untangling yarn builds character. I wonder if undoing row after row of clingy mohair and then putting the stitches back on affects one in a similar fashion.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Opera


This is a chocolate covered lemon wafer that I found in Bazaar by accident. I think I ate about 10 of these today.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Cake


Glaze

January 3rd, 2009
I was going to take this photo off but it's just too pretty. I tried to make a cake that totally did not come out. By the way this whole thing is pretty silly and not just the cake part. Anyway I used one stick of butter instead of 2 and the cake came out very not moist but I ate like an 1/8th of it anyway. I was hoping it would taste better each time I tried it and now I feel totally sick. I threw it out. I will try again once I get over the initial trauma. The glass has a little of the batter in it that you are supposed to pour on top after the cake is done. I keep remembering the knitting instructor's words on the matter. She said that when she makes a new recipe she makes it exactly how it is so she knows what it's supposed to be..

This is called Chudo I think. It's a baking dish which belonged to my grandmother in Russia. It must be 100 years old. My grandmother Maria used to make some kind of cake in it that sank at the slightest vibration and I was not allowed to jump in the kitchen while it was being baked in the oven. At my age I find the need to jump in the kitchen quite confusing. I bet my grandmother thought the same.

This is a closeup of the Chudo bottom. You can see the one hundred year old knife marks probably because various cake things refused to leave this baking container voluntarily.

1-25-09 1:35 AM Wondering what happened to this. Should try this cake again.

3-17-09 8:27 PM Cake #2