Making Progress

I'm a little past the first repeat of the first color chart on my Luke's Diced Vest. I only do one or two rounds while we watch TV at night, but I think that keeps it from feeling like a slog. The red is einband Icelandic from Frelsi Farm here in Maine, and it's haloing ever so slightly, which is pretty much perfect.

Luke's Diced, in Progress

Hopefully, this should work.

Prjón Pr0n

Prjón is Icelandic for knitting, and what kind of woolhead would I be if I didn't do a bit of stash enhancement in the Land of Lopi? Incidentally, I had never really given it any thought, but the correct pronunciation of lopi isn't LOW-pee (insert urination joke here). Neither the o nor the i are accented, which means they're both short vowels - LOH-pih.

Language lesson aside, I mentioned that there were lopapeysur everywhere. Seriously, it was knitterly inspiration everywhere we looked. I also mentioned that Ragga threw together a half day tour for us. Knowing that David is a designer, she took us to the studio/showroom for one of the labels we saw quite a lot of in Reykjavík and which we were really impressed by - Farmers Market. As it turns out, the owners are friends of hers, and it was great to get to look at some of their designs up close.





(Yes, I know they're on hangers, but it's a tiny showroom and the most efficient way to display samples.)

And not only had we been seeing and loving their sweater designs all over town, we also saw a CD for sale at the symphony the night before that was the latest by the husband, Jóel Pálsson, who's an award-winning jazz saxophonist. So having met him, of course, we had to buy it. If you like jazz, I'd recommend it.



Ragga also arranged for us to meet and see the studio of hot ticket designer Sruli Recht. Not as much of a ready-to-wear aesthetic there, but his work is still just beautiful and wonderfully artistic. Proving the Reykjavík-is-a-small-town argument, we also just happened to bump into him and his wife the following evening in another part of town as we were looking for a bus.

Anyway, after visiting those studios, it was off to the Ístex spinning mill to see the lopi being made. Ístex is the only spinning mill in the country, and they sell the lopi under their own label as well as producing for the Reynolds label. Same yarn, different ball bands. I didn't take any photos inside the mill, but David took some video footage that I'll try to share if either of us ever gets around to editing it. Or, you could just buy Ragga's DVD, where she gives a tour of both the spinning mill and the scouring mill up north in Blönduós.



After the spinning mill was where things got really, really fun.



Álafoss was the company that used to process the wool until they went belly up in '91 and Ístex stepped in and bought up the remains. The old Álafoss mill is now a yarn shop and a cluster of other artisans' shops, and the name still lives on in the name of the chunky lopi yarn, of which we bought a fair bit of. I got some to make a design in one of the Reynolds pattern books that I've always liked.



The navy blue is an extra pattern color I'm working into the original design just for a little pop against the neutral base palette. I'm also taking inspiration from Ragga and working it top down. David picked out yarn for himself to work Ragga's Óðinn pattern, which is a free pattern written for traditional bottom up construction and is featured on the DVD.



I also got a one kilo bale of plötulopi - aka, Icelandic unspun - plus a couple of contrast colors to make myself one or two more sweaters. I'm thinking seamless construction based on some of the Japanese sweater patterns I have, and I'm really excited to play with this wool. The sock yarn, which is Danish, isn't particularly great, but it was something to work on during the flight home.



I also got buttons!



Altogether, our wool purchases added up to roughly $135 US - that's for 3 to 4 sweaters' worth of lopi! Plus, Iceland has a tax refund scheme to encourage tourists to buy stuff. On any purchase over 4,000ISK that you will be taking out of the country, participating retailers give you a form to fill out which you can then cash in at the airport before you leave to get 15% of the total purchase back. Single purchases with a refund amount over 5,000ISK (i.e., purchases over 33,333ISK) require an extra step of obtaining a customs stamp EXCEPT for woolen products, which are exempt. You can buy all the wool you want. So what that meant for us was that the final tally on our wool purchase, which is a significant stash enhancement, came to about $120. Plus they put it in a nice, and very large bag for us.



As a little aside, the old Álafoss factory also had a swimming pool complex, because the waterfall that used to power the mill also has geothermal springs, and local children used to learn to swim there. More recently, though, the building was used by the band Sigur Rós to record their first album.



On our way back into Reykjavík, we stopped at one more LYS. It was otherwise a fairly typical shop, but it was where I made my most treasured find of the trip. It's a collection of traditional Icelandic textile designs, compiled over the course of 3 years from old manuscripts and containing over 700 designs, plus a history in Icelandic and English of the patterns and discussion of the rules of symmetry and mathematics of how the patterns were developed. And it's only available in Iceland.





Tombóla/Raffle

At the end of our afternoon with her, Ragga gave us four discount cards good for 15,000ISK off on of her Knitting Iceland tours through 2012, to use ourselves or to give away.



That morning she had been on the phone trying to reach her younger brother, who lives in Tokyo, as it was just hours after the earthquake there. And between that, and the New Zealand quake, and all the conflicts in the Arab world recently, I thought that the best thing to do with them would be to hold a drawing to try to raise funds for Médecins sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, who have been responding to both natural and manmade situations like this for forty years.

I expect most of you already know this, if for no other reason than for the Yarn Harlot's support of the organization over the last several years. They're an organization that gets the idea that we're all one human family and that we should take care of each other, and for that reason alone they deserve support.

So this is how the raffle will work: Make a donation to MSF between now and April 1 and send confirmation of your donation to me at mel(dot)vassey(at)gmail(dot)com with the subject line "raffle". For every $5 US (or equivalent in your own currency) that you donate to MSF, you will get one entry into the raffle. Donate $100 and you'll get 20 entries, but don't feel like a $5 donation is too little. It could buy enough medication to save a life.

On April 2 (my birthday!), I will use a random number generator to pick four winning entries. If you have multiple entries, you will have an opportunity to win more than one of the cards. As I said, the face value of each card is 15,000ISK, which is roughly $129 US at current exchange rates. Having seen what Ragga can throw together literally at the last minute, I expect these tours are going to be nothing short of phenomenal, especially with teachers like Ysolda Teague and Franklin Habit on board.

So go forth and donate, then let me know all about it. Then go to Iceland and have the time of your life.

Belated Blogiversary

For some reason I thought it was today, but I missed it by 3 days, apparently. Anyway, this little blog is now five years old and ready to go off to kindergarten. Or something.

Today, on what I thought was my blogiversary, I hung out at Spa with a bunch of people whose company I enjoyed. And I didn't take a single photo. What I did do was finish off the gusset, turn the heel and knit up the heel flap on the second of a pair of socks I desperately want to get finished before we leave for Iceland. I finished the first one while waiting for Stephen Fry to receive an award from the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and give a talk (at Harvard, as one would expect) last Tuesday night.*

No photos of the socks yet, since the pair isn't finished, but they're toe up with Sherman Short Row toes, arch shaping à la Oliver (Rav link), and a Widdershins-style heel. I do believe this may be THE sock formula for my feet. At least the first one seems about as close to perfect as I've ever come.

The yarn is merino/possum/silk sock yarn that I got from James. He's now sold off his remaining stock of this yarn, but I managed to snag a couple more pairs' worth from him on clearance. It is so soft that Danielle decided she had to stuff the first sock down her shirt. So now I can say my foot has touched her breast, which is about as rare a statement as it is odd, I believe.

Aside from that, I've also been getting my photographic equipment in order for Iceland. Remember this little camera I picked up a couple of years ago in Montréal?



Well, being plastic and lightweight, I figured it'd be the perfect option for doing some film photography, so I've been stocking up on no-longer-produced 620 film spools on eBay. I dropped the first test rolls off for developing on my way to Spa today, so I'll find out soon what I might be able to expect from it. Meanwhile, these might give you some idea of the type of images that are possible.

Also, I'm taking my digital camera and have been working on my finishing skills using GIMP. Even as a grad student, Adobe Creative Suite would cost me $300. GIMP's $0 pricetag trumps that easily, and it works really well. I've been going back through some of my India photos and have reworked some that I didn't feel had captured what I saw as nicely as I'd hoped. The results have been much nicer.







Since that trip, I've also managed to track down an open source program that can convert Nikon's raw image format into one that can be manipulated by GIMP. That has also greatly improved my overall image quality and capabilities, so I hope to have some very nice shots to share from the Land of Fire and Ice.




*Mr. Fry did not disappoint in his talk and my respect for him is now even greater than I thought possible. This young woman, however, nearly stole the show when she sang this very song to him during the Q&A session afterward. I do believe he blushed.

Og Fleiri Vettlingar!

I just finished up the létt-lopi mittens and couldn't wait to get a pic posted here. I'm really pleased with how these turned out, and you can see the cuffs of the handspun poking out of them. Now I'll have three layers of thick, squishy wool between my hands and the elements.

I could have done these with just two colors, but in the end, I'm fine with how the patterning turned out. The back-of-hand pattern is actually from a Selbu children's stocking pattern. I did the palms in a very basic diamond lattice pattern and diverged from traditional Selbu patterning by putting the thumb gusset on the side. Since these were made specifically to go over the handspun mittens, though, I didn't have an option. It was really easy to do, though, and the very simple speckled patterning is warm without floats to snag on.

The Nasty Ass Honey Badger

Unless you work with a bunch of foul-mouthed degenerates like I do, this may be NSFW. It is high-larious, though.

Vettlingar!

In four weeks, David and I are actually going off on a short vacation that has no other agenda than vacation. Typically our travel involves work or family obligations, but not this time. And our destination? The land of the Viking sagas: Iceland.

I love visiting out-of-the-way places, and Iceland's always been in there on the list, but the devalued króna and some particularly good off-season package deals finally made it a viable possibility. David, as usual, was skeptical, but the prospect of spending 6 days somewhere with tons of geothermal hot springs was a huge selling point.

Anyway, visiting Iceland in early March meant one thing, in particular: a reason to knit some new mittens. I have some Létt-Lopi one of our former techs brought me from a trip there a couple of years ago, so those will (hopefully) become nice, thick Nordic-patterned outer mittens. I started on them tonight, but I think they need to be frogged so I can make the cuff looser. I wanted something a little softer for an inner layer, though, so I decided that would be a good project for some of my own handspun that had been sitting around for a few years now.



The wool is the lambswool from a border leicester cross that I got at NH Sheep & Wool (The Year of the Deluge), and I absolutely love how these turned out. While my spinning could have been more even, it all worked nicely in the finished fabric, which is squishy and very cozy. And I do believe this is the first real project I've ever completed using my own handspun. No pattern for these. As I often do, I made it up as I went along. The cuffs are baby cable rib for a little extra warmth, and the thumb gussets are placed on the side so that they'll go on either hand.

The other advantage to using stash? It helps free up space for all the really, really cheap Icelandic yarn I anticipate buying. In fact, I did a major cleanup and destashing this past weekend. This trip wasn't the sole reason, as it was very badly needed, but it may well have given slightly greater urgency to the task.

As it was, I managed to empty out a huge box that had been at the bottom of a huger pile of stuff, untouched since I moved in over 5 years ago. That, in turn, freed up space along the wall for some of the bins I'd been storing under my bed. So now there's an empty bin under the bed and space to fit more bins. And since I have more non-yarn bins that need to be gone through and that I may well be able to free up, I'm foreseeing a distinct possibility of a yarn frenzy up near the Arctic Circle in the very near future.

Snow Days

I seem to have lost my blogging voice of late, or maybe I've just got too little worth saying. There has definitely been a bit too much dull regularity around here of late. And everyone already knows we've had a lot of this:



That photo was taken at the home of my friends Shawn & Chris. I stayed with them Tuesday night in anticipation of the latest storm, since they live much, much closer to my workplace than I do. As it turned out, the storm wasn't quite as dire as predicted and I likely could have gone home. Since I don't see my friends nearly often enough, though, it was nice to have the chance to catch up a little bit.

Meanwhile, I noticed the night before that that the sweater Tuck was wearing had chafed him pretty badly on one of his legs, and since I was already planning not to head home and didn't have an alternative for him to wear, I figured I need to knit him up a new, non-chafing sweater toute de suite. Fortunately, I had some Berkshire Bulky from Webs that I'd gotten to try out a pattern idea and decided I could spare a ball to keep him warm. In the end, I needed just a smidge more than one ball to finish, but the end product certainly works well.



He was so sleepy, it was all he could do to hold his head up. Clearly, being a model is hard work.

First FO!

Okay, I finished it two nights ago, but I didn't manage to snap a photo until just before I left for work Monday and only just got around to posting it here. This is the hat to go with the fingerless gloves I made for my mom. It's a double layer, so it's extra plush and should keep her extra warm. The design, including tassel, was discussed and approved, and I'm quite pleased at how it turned out.

The holidays were low-key, not least because of my work schedule, but they seemed to go by awfully quickly. I worked Xmoose Eve, but I had the rest of the weekend off, so we went to my parents and had a nice, albeit brief, visit. David had gotten me tickets to a Boston Pops concert for Boxing Day, but the Nor'easter that blew through put the kibosh on that. Instead, we'll be going to see Mr. Lockhart and Company sometime in the spring.

The other big deal gift he gave me was a Kindle! Which I have very, very much been enjoying. At Mush's suggestion, I set up Calibre e-book management software on David's computer, as it has a built-in server to be able to manage collections remotely. I'm using it primarily to download syndication feeds from a few different international newspapers plus The New Yorker without paying subscription fees. There is definitely some content I don't get access to, particularly with the latter, but I get whatever they've already got available for free online - which is pretty much everything really worth reading - just by accessing the server and downloading. For FREE!

Back on the Wagon

It likely comes as no surprise that the holidays shot my weight and diet management all to hell. Anyway, with the new year, it's time to ride that particular pony again, and Messrs. S & H over at Cocky & Rude are having their second annual weight loss competition. Last year I was only unofficially competing, since I had already started my weight loss program well before they started theirs.

This year I signed on for realz, and the competition starts tomorrow. They required that everyone send in a "before" photo, so I submitted the most recent one I have. You can see I've got my work cut out for me.

A Few Things

Thing the First:

I recently received a care package from India.



The way they do this in India is that the cardboard box is stitched up inside a fabric bag, which is then sewn up and sealed with sealing wax.



Inside was a small container of ground-with-mortar-and-pestle chai spices and a couple of boxes of delicious Indian tea, which I have been enjoying.

Thing the second:

I recently got to work knitting up some yak/cormo yarn my mom bought at Rhinebeck last year from the folks at Bijou Basin. She decided she'd like some fingerless gloves, so she could keep her fingertips free for her photography, and a hat. I found the glove-in-progress very amusing once it was bristling with needles.



When I finished the first one, Tolo graciously offered to model it for me.



I have since finished the pair, and I handed them off to my mom last night. For the hat, I have enough yarn that I can make it double thickness for the winter.

Thing the third:

We finally put up our tree tonight.



After the Great Monkey Massacre of Aught-Nine, I think we were a bit reluctant. It wouldn't have seemed like the holidays, though, without it. This year, it's back on top of the dog crate and has been lashed down with four holding points to minimize the potential for major crashes. I'm not entirely convinced Cougar won't kill this one, too, though.

A Fortunate Non-crisis

Last night I noticed I was nearing the end of the current ball of yarn I'm working from for the vest-in-progress, and it struck me that I couldn't remember if this was the 2nd or 3rd ball of the four I have. Since the yarn is a one-off dyejob I got from Nanney Kennedy last year at Rhinebeck, and there were only 4 skeins to be had, I started to get a little nervous. After all, I'm still about 4 inches from the armholes, and we all know how much yarn the cabling takes up.

So I got home from work and quickly looked and found one lone ball of yarn. Curses! I love this yarn - the color is pretty true in the photo, very denim-y - and really want to have this particular vest in this particular yarn. Visions of having to frog the whole thing back and starting from scratch on this project were swirling in my head as I went to bed and got a fitful day's sleep. When I got up this evening, though, I had a slightly more thorough look and, sure enough, found the 4th ball fallen down under a bit more of the clutter that is my yarn room. Crisis averted!

Just to make sure, though, I did a quickie calculation and determined that by the time I reach the armholes I should be right at 2/3 of the yarn used. Once I figure in the armhole decreases and the V-neck shaping, that should give me just enough to finish this project. I hope.

Fuzzy Black Balls

I haz 'em.






A matched pair, even.






Wanna see them?








That's two super soft balls of possum-merino in black, and that long skein hanging between them is some hand-dyed superwash merino sock yarn from James in the "Highland" colorway. Or is that colourway?

Either way, the hand-dyed is James's own lovely creation, and I ordered it all from his online shop, which is right here.

The Time, He Fly

How in the world have two weeks gone by since my last post? It's not exactly as though nothing's happened. I had a birthday, I worked, I've been knitting some (albeit slowly). I think it's mostly that there's been a lot of same old, same old of late and not so much that's blogworthy. Unless, of course, you want to read all about the giant mountain of dirty clothes I schlepped over to the local launderette because first our dryer exploded and now David's trying to get the laundry room tiled and keeps running into snags.

It's not the first time I've been there, as we've had laundry woes before and I did take a few washed loads over last month to dry. I even took some photos on that trip which I do think are quite nice.



Today I took a couple of photos here at home that I thought would be of interest. First there's this year's garlic crop. There's one bulb from last year's harvest left, so I'll be glad when these are ready for harvest.



And here's some proof of knitting, though I didn't do anything on it today. It's my own modernized version of a ca. 1942 Red Heart pattern (4" waistband? I don't think so.) that I'm thinking to write up. I've been pacing myself, though, so that I don't put too much strain on my wrists & arms with the cables. I'm very pleased with how it's knitting up.



And I think that pretty well sums things up.

Ch-ch-changes

Remember the Japanese pattern book sweater I modeled way back in this post? Well, I put it on yesterday to wear to work and as I was driving, I noticed for the umpteenth time how short the sleeves were.



This, of course, was even after I had made adaptations to the pattern (written in one size) to fit my considerably larger Western frame. Apparently, I must be part gibbon.

Anyway, I just happened to have some leftovers of the same yarn with me, so I decided to go about lengthening the sleeves a bit. Because the sleeves were knat cuff-up, I couldn't just ravel them, and the seaming made snipping and unzipping the end a poor option. So I decided that I should just pick up stitches from the long-tail cast-on, which is exactly what I did.



The first round after I picked up stitches might have done better as a purl round, since I ended up with a band separating two sections of garter stitch. Still, though, I think that it would have had a bit too heavy a look as a solid band of garter, and the band serves to break that up nicely and looks like a design element, too. More importantly, the sleeves are now long enough.



I also made the neck band wider to match the waist band. As I recall, I deliberately left it a bit narrower, but I ended up feeling like the neck was a bit too open. My picking up of stitches turned out to be much less noticeable there, as it was a cast-off edge that I hadn't done as a sewn cast-off (my usual) and I did a purl round immediately after knitting up stitches. In all, a fairly quick and easy fix, and I'm pleased with the results.

Sprung

I can't believe how early spring has arrived this year. This was the scene in front of the house this morning.

Josh Socks

Need a reminder of what they look like?



Perhaps eventually there will be a photo of them adorning Mr. Trashy One's feet, but I'm told they fit and are appropriately thick and fuzzy.

I thought a bit about what to call this pattern, since despite the similar basic concept (shaped arch), these are my own toe-up interpretation of that idea in a sea of top-down patterns. I thought that since Oliver is the pattern I bought and used as a basic template for this adaptation and since these are made in the reverse direction, maybe I should call them Revilo, but that a) sounded too much like a Harry Potter curse and b) didn't make them sound particularly appealing. Then I realized that the natural thing to do was name them for their intended recipient, Josh.

The yarn is some Kona Superwash DK that I've had for a while and hand-dyed with lemonade & orange-flavored Kool-aid. Not colors that figure at all in my personal wardrobe, but these weren't for me and Josh has a strong preference for citrus-y colors. The toes & heels just have a dark blue Schoeller-Stahl sock reinforcing yarn knit along with the Kona to make them a bit thicker and more wear-resistant, but I think that bit of contrast works really nicely.

I'm not going to share much more detail-wise at the moment. It's really not anything that a determined person couldn't figure out, but I like the way these turned out and am contemplating writing this up as a pattern for sale, or perhaps more of a tutorial on how to make your own with whatever weight yarn suits you.

Finally, Non-Secretive Knitting!

I actually finished this a few nights ago, but this being my busy week, I hadn't gotten around to blogging it. This is the second kid's sweater done in Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool that I'll be sending to Afghanistan (along with this one). Cousin Brian's deployment will be up soon, so I'll likely just send them to afghans for Afghans at this point. Either way, they should help to keep someone warm who needs it, and that was the point of making them.

This one is a top-down rolled cuff raglan. I'd done one years ago from a pattern (Oat Couture, maybe? I know I've still got it around here somewhere), but it's simple enough to sort out with a bit of EZ math, so I winged this one and it turned out well. I said it before, but I really did enjoy working with this yarn, and I expect I'll be using it to make something for myself at some point.I have a couple of vest projects I need to sort out first, though. One is a Fair Isle vest in Harrisville Shetland and the other is an Aran vest in some springy, slightly grayish-blue, seawater-and-solar-dyed yarn I got from Nanney Kennedy at Rhinebeck last fall. All I have for both at the moment is yarn with no pattern, so a bit of swatching and designing needs to be done.

Ganz Schoen Kreativ

Since I've been photo-poor lately around here, I thought I'd share about all I'm able with my current project. Let's just say it's involved provisional cast-on and short rows, and it's nearing completion. I'll share more when I'm able, and comments trying to guess at what it might be will get moderated out, such is the need for secrecy.

अ लिटल रेंट

एस्तो एसटी एस्क्रीबीयेंदो असी पा के नादिये पूदियेरा लेयेर्लो सीन दीफ़ीकूल्तदेस, पार्तीकूलार्मेंते ला हेफा दे ला क्लीनीका। एंट्रे मीस अमीगोस एस पोको सेक्रेतो के नेसेसीतो उन नूएवो त्रबाहो। कोण लो देल मोमेंटो, टेंगो पोको ओपोर्तुनिदाद पारा मॉस देसारोयो प्रोफ़ेसीओनाल ई, आसे मूचो तीयेम्पो, नो मे इ सेंतीदो कोण ला सीतूआसियों। एस पोर एसो के इ एस्तादो पेर्सीगीयेंदो कारेरास दे एस्तूदियोस आवान्जाडोस ई आसे मेसेस बूस्कान्दो ऊना पोसीसीयों नूएवा एन ला क्वाल पूएदा आवान्जार्मे ला कारेरा प्रोफेसीयोनाल।

एल प्रोब्लेमा के एस्तोय एन्कोंत्रान्दो एस के कासी तोदास लास पोसीसीयोनेस के पागारीयाँ सूएल्दो सूफीसियेंते, आऊनके टेंगो एन्त्रेनेमीयेंतो सूफीसियेंते पारा आसेर्लास, रेकीयेरें एक्स्पेरीयेंसीय के मे आसे फालता। ई कोमो आल मोमेंटो सीगों सीयेंदो एल उनिको एन नूएस्त्रा कासा गानान्दो सूएल्दो सीकीयेरा, क्रेयो के सेरा कासी ईम्पोसीब्ले एन्कोंत्रार पोसीसीयों आ नीवेल दे एन्त्रादा के पागारीया सूफीसीयेंते पा सोपोर्तार अल नूएस्त्रो ओगार। सीगो एस्पेरान्दो के एन्कूएन्त्रे आ आल्गो के आल मेनोस मे पेर्मीतीयेरा बूस्कार त्राबाहो ऊनो ओ दोस दीयास आ ला सेमाना एन क्लीनीका पारा गाणार उन सूएल्दो सूप्लेमेंतारीयो, पेरो आल मोमेंटो मे तीयेने उन पोको फ्रूस्त्रादो।

ओग ई स्त्रिकिंग नीहेटर, ऐर याई फ्रेम्देलास योब्बर पो मीस्तेरीयत प्रोयेक्त। ओग सीदें वेल्दी फो मेन्नेस्कर क्लारार ओ कोम्मा सो लंगट ई ओ ओवार्सेत्ता डेन्ना, विल याई सी नो आत प्रोयेक्त ऐर अत पार सोक्कर फ़ोर एन विस ब्लोग्गर सोम इक्का स्त्रिक्का (ओग सोम फोर्होपेंत्लीविस इक्का फोश्टर नोश्क स्क्रिफ्त्ली फोनेतिस्क)। बिल्डर नोर तीदें ऐर रिक्ती।

And in Other Other News

Thanks everyone for your good wishes for David. The CT scan was basically unremarkable, and he seems to be on the mend, albeit slowly. Whether the mystery will be solved or not remains to be seen.

David's health ended up overshadowing another bit of sad news on the farm; Paula called us last weekend to let us know that Malaga, the last of the pygmy goats, had passed away. You may remember that his failing health was what prompted me to bring home Angus and Shaun-Fergus a couple months ago, so it really didn't come as any great surprise. He had actually done fairly well, though, and was in pretty good spirits despite his arthritis up until his last few days. Had he made it to spring, he would have been 14 years old, which is beyond ancient in goat years.

He apparently passed away sometime in the night or early morning of last Friday-Saturday. Paula had to get up extra early to go to a Maine Alpaca Association meeting, so Wendy was the one who found him in the barn and covered him with a blanket until Paula got home. Paula told us, though, that when she got home the blanket had been pulled off and Angus had curled up on the blanket right next to Malaga with his head resting on Malaga's chest. The sheepie boys had really bonded with the old goat over the past couple of months and had been seen curled up with him in the barn at night. Seems Angus felt that he needed to keep vigil over his old friend one last time.

Knitting Semi-News

No photos to share, primarily because I started working a couple of days ago on a top-secret-hush-hush project. All I will say is that it's something of a variation on a published pattern, fruity beverages might have been involved, and short rows have definitely been knat (been knatted? knut?). Fear not, as all shall be revealed in the fullness of time. The work of the last couple of days, though, has put a bit of strain on my hands and forearms, so I'll be taking a break from it for a few days to let things settle down.

Firewalled

This might be one of the last posts I write from the workplace. Last week, a pair of terminals in the clinic (not ones that *I* typically use for teh intarwebs, I might point out) fell victim to a previously unknown and fairly nasty worm. So now the Mother of All Firewalls is about to be installed to keep us from going to pretty much any site aside from a handful that we need access to for work.

Of course, that probably means we're also going to get locked out of a lot of sites that are useful but infrequently visited, like websites for veterinary schools if we need to contact a specialty laboratory or a teaching hospital about a case. And although those situations don't come along often, I can see us being hampered considerably when, say, we need to track down a phone number outside of our area. I suppose we can always call directory assistance in those instances, but it'll end up costing the clinic more money.

I do spend a lot of time online, but I can always knit, or read, or study, or do something else. I'm more concerned about what will happen when I start classes again in the spring. Since I spend more of my waking hours here than at home and since I generally spend more time here than anyone else on staff, this could potentially damage my ability to keep up with my studies if the powers that be don't make allowances. Seeing as I've been asking for a password for two years to access the wireless hub from my own laptop, so I can do schoolwork without having to use work computers (which should, in theory, expose the clinic network to less risk, since it would mean one less avenue for malware to pass to the network), I'm not sure what to expect.

Anyway, there may not be any more work pics for a good while, and since this post is short on images as it is, I offer you this little bit of silliness. Enjoy.

First FO of the Decade

I finished the Fishermen's Wool child's sweater just a short while ago. It still needs a wash and block to make it special purty before it gets packed up and shipped off to Afghanistan, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

In other local-global knitting news, David and I got a package the other day from our friend Don in Turkey. Don's been living & teaching spoiled rich kids in Istanbul for nearly two years now, and he picked us up two pairs of handspun, handknit socks. I'll try to get pics later, since I've got a few days off coming up, but these are pretty interesting.

They are not at all something you'd want next to your skin - the wool is pretty coarse and was spun very, very raw (i.e., occasional twigs and a very sheepy smell before the socks were washed, twice) - but the yarn is singles, I expect likely spindle-spun, and very springy. They were worked top down with some variant of a long-tail cast-on that I can't quite figure out but which is very stretchy. Other than that, they've got a simple flap heel and a round toe.

One pair is striped and one pair plain and the only thing they have for embellishment is that all of them have a 4 stitch K1P1 rib that continues from the cuff on either side of the leg down to the ankle - akin to but far simpler than the "clock" pattern on kilt hose. I think they should make for good, hard-wearing slipper socks through the rest of the winter.

New Year, New Project

On New Year's Day, I cast on my first project for 2010. These are sleeves for a child's sweater I'm planning to send to my cousin Brian, who's stationed in Afghanistan for the second time. You may recall that the last time he was there I sent him a Baby Surprise Jacket. He gave that to one of their local interpreters, who had a newborn son. As with the last one, this doesn't necessarily have an intended recipient, but I'm sure it will find a welcome home.

As for details on the project, I'm making this without a pattern, but it will be a saddle shoulder pullover with the cables continuing into the saddles. I'm making the body fairly plain, but it will have seed stitch panels at the sides. I'm not entirely certain why, but I started the ribbing for the body in 2x2 as with the sleeves, then ripped it out and restarted in 1x1. I think that the thought running through my head was that the 1x1 will transition more smoothly into the seed stitch, just as the 2x2 transitioned perfectly into the cable panel. At least that's what I'm going with, since I don't want to start the body over again.

Anyway, this should be sized to fit a child of around 6-8 years old. The sleeve cuffs and the body ribbing are relatively long to accommodate for growth. The yarn is Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool, which I'd never used before. I've been surprisingly pleased with this yarn, which is a step above Lion Brand's usual ack-rylic fare.

It's certainly not Malabrigo, but it's still relatively soft with good loft. The singles are somewhat softly spun, but the wool has a relatively long staple length, which I think should help offset any losses in durability from the lower twist. I love the loft and spring the knit fabric has, and I expect it will make for a toasty warm garment. And at $8.99 for an 8 oz. (225g) skein, I can see making myself a nice cardigan out of it at some point.

Once, of course, I whittle away at my still-far-too-big stash.