Miscrossed Sleeves

My current favorite WIP to work on when home is the Gramps Cardigan, a design by Kate Oates.  I bought the pattern during her Black Friday sale and have to say, I am really enjoying it.  I am using Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Opal Heather which has turned out to be a much softer wool than I had thought it would be.  I decided to try something new and not only knit the sleeves first, but also knit them two at a time.

I finished these on Saturday.  Like most knitters I am not a big fan of sleeve knitting, so it's exciting to have that part already out of the way.  The back and fronts are knit seamlessly and then the collar and button band are picked up.  I love having cables to knit again.  I had started out knitting without a cable needle, something I do a lot because of my socks, but I've discovered that in this case I prefer to have one around.  Makes things look much more even.

And yes, that is a miscrossed cable there.  I started the sleeves the night before my defense.  I noticed the mistake early on but decided to leave it.  It's a nice reminder of what I have conquered.

Farewell

Last night I laid to rest Martin, beloved and seriously annoying mouse.  Martin led a good long life, living with me for over a year with his squeaky wheel.  To the best of my knowledge Martin was a year and a half old when he died, which is a good long life for a food mouse.  He was buried in the dumpster along with George, the Christmas tree, and took with him his favorite sock and his prized squeaky wheel.

Martin came to live with me on my 22nd birthday.  He was the child of terror and was confused as to how to behave around humans.  Mostly he just hid from me.  See, Martin was originally intended to be food for my brother's pet snake.  But somehow Martin escaped in the van on the way home and spent hours eluding my family until my sister found him doing battle with one of the cats.  She took him hostage and refused to give him back, but because she lives in a dorm she couldn't take him with her and so the crazy thing came to live with me.

Martin and I had an interesting relationship.  I'd buy him food, change his litter, and let him live in an old sock.  In turn he'd smell bad and run on his wheel in the middle of the night so that it made the most horrendous squeaking noise.  But we grew fond of each other.  Our real bonding moment came the day I got so annoyed with him that I spontaneously yelled at him in Russian rather than my intended English.  He froze and looked up at me in a sort of understanding.  That's when it hit me.  Martin was no ordinary food mouse, he was a Russian speaking food mouse!  From that time he became my little myshka and I became the insane person who had a pet mouse she only spoke to in a foreign language.  But we were a good pair.

I wish I had a picture to post of Martin, but he hated cameras in a way only the Amish can truly respect.  So instead I'll just say good bye, moya malenkaya myshka.

Wrong Frakking Apartment

I totally meant to start the Friday Wedding Updates this week, but my car decided that it felt unloved.  Evidently if I spend the money to repair a problem with the computer I need to spend an amount equal or greater on Glinda.  She decided to throw a tantrum on Friday and suddenly activate her check engine light for no apparent reason, the car equivalent of a three year old suddenly falling on the ground crying with no visible cause.  It's just confusing and scary as anything.  Fortunately Glinda is in no danger of exploding, but it took a lot of running around after work to make sure I can get her fixed tomorrow.  Here's hoping she matures a bit more as she ages into the second half of her second decade.  It really is time for her to put her priorities in order.

So after fun car craziness on Friday (hopefully not to be continued in the expensive car craziness sequal tomorrow), I came home for smoothies and tv night with Andrea.  We watch a lot of the same tv shows, often together.  We especially watch our creepy tv shows together, which is why we were in the middle of The Secret Circle when someone tried to open our door.  Being the deductive individuals we are and understanding that even with our limited mathematical skills we can still count to two, we immediately took action.  The oh my gosh someone is breaking into our apartment kind of action.

Let me preface this by saying that we live in a very nice apartment complex and do not have a need to constantly fear someone breaking in to our apartment.  There was that one incident in which the maintenance man came in while I was in the shower, but at least the leak in the kitchen sink was fixed by the time he left and we both had a funny story to show for it.  It should, however, be abundantly clear by this point that Andrea and I are paranoid individuals.  And when I say paranoid I mean that the one time I decided to try taking a bath last month I brought in the rock salt as a precaution to slow down angry spirits if I needed to get out the door.  So when I say we took action, it isn't just a peak out the window and see if someone's out there kind of thing.

To my memory the following took a total of twenty to thirty seconds (which I acknowledge is far too long if serious danger presented itself.  We may be enacting drills to improve this):

1) Random sound of door knob trying to turn.  I jump off the couch and go look out the peephole, taking care not to actually touch the door and alert anyone to my proximity.  I see a strange man.

2) I whisper to Andrea that said strange man is outside our door and we race to the end of the hall where she hands me the Jackle (a prop replica knife from Buffy that is seriously sharp) and I run back to the door.

3) Man is still standing there and then appears to lean something against the door and walks out of my field of vision.

4) I glance behind me and see Andrea standing there with her costume props of an airsoft rifle and giant sword, one in each hand, pointed at the door.  I wish I had taken a picture.

5) Man is back at the door.  He still has not knocked but he also hasn't tried the knob again so I decide not to confront him with our stabbing implements.  Suddenly the door across from ours opens and I hear a lot of noise and the dogs start barking.  I hear a woman call to the man, who picks up his stuff and goes in.

6)  I start laughing hysterically.

Apparently our neighbor had someone over but did not tell him which door was hers.  The current theory is that she told him the door was open and that is why he tried to just come in without knocking.  I can only imagine what would have happened had we opened the door.  The sight alone would probably terrify anyone, not because we're intimidating but just because it is probably scary that we would be that quick to arm ourselves.  At least it's nice to know that we are prepared, even if it is just another way we weird out the neighbors.  Honestly, I'm just glad I was knitting on my sweater and not a pair of socks.  I would have no qualms about whipping my Hiya-Hiya's into action, but it would have been a big tangle to clean up afterwards.

Miraculous Computery Goodness

Tonight is a very special night.  And not just because of the return of The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle.  And not even because Heather Hogan just posted her Pretty Little Liars recap, which is usually reason enough.  No, tonight is the night my computer was reborn.

In the past year and a half my computer has suffered numerous problems.  The fan shorted out, then the internet stopped connecting, the headphone jack broke, the keyboard decided to stop using key letters, like "r" and "c" (oh yeah, my first draft of my thesis was missing these letters.  Can you imagine how that went?), and then, the screen cracked.  It's been a dismal time for my computer and me, but honestly I guess that's what I get for naming my computer after my favorite Dollhouse doll.  They're always a little broken.

Yesterday the last piece of a working computer arrived in the mail.  My new screen.

Thankfully I live with a techie genius.  First she dismembered it.

And then she tore it to pieces.

And then . . . magically . . . it came back together.  And it is beautiful.

FO: Time of My Life Socks

Oh look at the pretties!

These are my Time of My Life Socks (Cat Bordhi's Darjeeling from The Knitter's Book of Socks).  I had a lot of fun knitting these as my lunch break socks at work, but I'm having even more fun wearing them.

The appeal of this design is the deceptive simplicity of them.  This is my first Cat Bordhi pattern and I have to say I am understanding everyone's praise of her genius.  The arch expansion and heel construction are pretty genius.  Unfortunately it's still a little baggy on my heels.  My current theory is that I have really narrow heels, which is why I love short row heels so much.

But it was still really fun to learn a new technique.

The real joy of these socks is the yarn.  I bought this from Unwind Yarn Company during a sale and it does not disappoint.  The twist holds up well to my crazy tinking needs.  Some yarns start to fluff up after a while, but I didn't have that problem. This was also my first time knitting socks out of a cashmere blend and they are just as soft and cozy as promised.  Add in some lovely splashes of color and this really is an awesome yarn to work with.

Because I tend to knit shorter socks I have almost half a skein leftover.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I'm thinking yoga socks.  It is finally getting cold here and I'd like to be able to keep my feet warm without wearing out my regular socks.  We'll see what I come up with.

Refocusing

Today's post is just a small bit of housekeeping.  I promise I'll post my final FO from 2011 tomorrow (hint: it's more socks!).   In two weeks Faithfully Geeky will have its third year anniversary.  I started this blog my last semester of college as a way to chronicle my growth as a knitter, and it has gone through fits and starts as I tried to continue blogging my way through grad school, language school, and the many many projects I made on the way.

Don't worry, this is not a good bye or a change of location.  I have loved keeping this blog, but I don't think I have expressed that very well.  There have been times when I have been so busy I let the blog slide and didn't update for months on end.  So I've decided that it is time to refocus my efforts and to assure this I'm going to try some new things.  This has nothing to do with the new year but is driven by the fact that I have found myself in a much different place in my life than I was last year and so want to change things up to bring a better product.

First up,  I'm going to start planning more.  I often plan out posts in my head, but I never actually write out a schedule, which is odd, because I am very much a schedule driven person.  I start each day by making a mental to-do list and have an obsession with writing everything down in my planner (you never know when you'll have to testify as to where you were three years ago on Jan 3 at 9am).  In an effort to bring better quality to the blog I am going to do this.

Also, I am going to allow myself to write posts that deal more with my personal life.  It's hard to find a balance when this is, after all, a personal blog.  It may center around knitting, but my life does influence the way a lot of my knitting turns out.  This is nothing extreme and will not be like keeping a diary.  I'm going to start by doing a Friday wedding update.  If you don't want to read about it, you can skip those posts, but for those who care I am getting married the first Friday in August and this will be a fun way to count down through the planning insanity.

The last change I'm going to make is a complete no-brainer.  I'm going to return to some of my geeky roots. This blog has the name it has for a reason, but I often leave out the real geeky part of my personality.  Part of this is because for much of the time I have been running this blog I was involved in geek-related podcasts and so got most of my chatter out there.  However, I am currently podcast-less and I am starting to feel the void, so look out for some sort of weekly geek obsession in the near future.

I'm making these changes in the hopes that I can better improve this space.  My only resolution for the new year involved spending more time writing, an activity I really miss now that I am out of school.  Hopefully you will stick with me into this new phase of Faithfully Geeky.   I have some of the most awesome readers in the world, and want to honor that with a more serious approach to the blog.

Ok, now back to my normal random insanity.

Eva secures uncooperative kitty.

Nothing New Here

Happy new year!  I hope everyone had a fun new year's eve.  I rang the new year in the way I love best -- sound asleep.  I know, I'm lame.  But we had a crazy week at work and I was tired.  Plus as a student my measure of time has always been August, rather than January.  I'd say this year is different since I graduated, but I'm getting married in August, so it's still the milestone month for me.

I wasn't going to do a year in knitting review because I have just been too caught up in crazy wedding planning, but last night I was struck by the need to leave no loose ends from 2011.  Obviously I could not finish all my lingering WIPs, but I did pick one.  My Vampire Academy Cowl only needed the ends woven in, so I took the loose end thing literally and finished it off.

This makes for 40 FOs in 2011.  Which is a lot more than I thought I would knit.   According to my Ravelry notebook this makes for:

7 pairs of socks
2 scarves
8 hats
5 cowls
6 shawls
4 small random gifties
and 7 (!) sweaters

Excuse me while I pat myself on the back.  One of my biggest knitting goals this year was to knit things I actually liked.  I did some major frogging this year and I think I really learned that truth.  If I don't like it now, I won't wear it later.

I don't have any real knitting goals for 2012.  I know I'll be knitting somethings for the wedding, though I'm not sure what exactly they will be.  Mostly I plan to just continue as I have.  It's been a pretty lean year for me financially, and that won't be changing any time soon.  I'm going to keep stashing when I have the funds and not feeling guilty for the occasional splurge.  If there's one thing I know now that I didn't know last year, it's that the stash can save my sanity.  It's ok to add to it because it, like a savings account, is a measure of security when the yarn money runs out.