Too happy to come up with a coherent title June 18, 2009

I am DONE with all the knitting for this bathrobe.

That’s right; done. Done with seed stitch.

I got the hood basically done at craft group last night, and then quick before bed (and the reason I didn’t blog last night) I knit up the little belt. It’s only 3 rows + cast on and bind off, so it wasn’t difficult to get done or anything.

Up for today? Seaming! Lots of seaming, and then embroidery. Once that’s done I can start on my swap knitting, which I’ll probably talk about since my partner a. doesn’t know who I am and b. doesn’t, as far as I know, read my blog. I just have to find the right yarns, now…

Skywalkeresque June 16, 2009

The biggest barriers for me when it comes to knitting are twofold. First is the all-too-common knitter’s block, otherwise known as being uninspired and unmotivated. The second and far worse is the physical barrier… how much my hands/arms/wrists/etc. can take before it’s just plain time to stop.

I was on a roll tonight- nearly half done with the hood on the bathrobe! But instead of breaking that halfway point with my last wakeful hour of the day, I’m … well. I’m typing this. And then I’ll probably watch tv or something. Maybe read a book.

In other words, not what I want to be doing, just because of my stupid physical limitations. I can only imagine how much worse it will be as I get older, particularly if I inherit my mother’s arthritis. It’s terrifying, really.

And that’s where I come to my post title… really, wouldn’t it be better if I could just get my hands, or at least my left hand as it’s more prone to pain, replaced by Luke-and-Anakin-Skywalker-esque robotic hands? Think of all I could do! I could crush aluminum cans to tiny cubes! I could bend 2 inch steel bars! I could knit for 15 hours straight!!

It would be amazing. Someone wanna get on inventing that for me, please? I have to go ice my hands.

Sometimes my Mother-in-Law beats me up June 15, 2009

She’s a masseuse, y’see, and after the preceding 54 hours of headache, Cory and I were only too happy to accept her invitation to dinner. Cory used the Ion-Spa weird foot cleansing thingie, and I got a massage. It was lovely, and the headache is (at least temporarily) out of the picture. However, usually she gives me a giant glass of water afterwards, to fend off soreness. This time, we both forgot, and I feel like I got hit by a truck. Better than a headache, but still. Ow.

I’m just finishing up the second sleeve of the bathrobe! I have only 3 rows and the bindoff left, and then it’s on to the hood! I might even beat my own goal on this thing. We’ll see. (I’ll try to get photos tomorrow… without my good camera it’s hard to get the motivation, especially after recording and editing a podcast episode, to go set up good lighting and white space to take pictures with the old camera.)

Things for which I am glad today June 14, 2009

1. It was Sunday, which was very important because my crushing headache from yesterday continued unabated. It’s still going, but moderately quenched now thanks to:
2. Ibuprofen. I took …probably more than one should, in an effort to quash this stupid headache. It only sort of worked, and only ever for about an hour.
3. The Discovery Channel had an all-day Mythbusters marathon, allowing me to sit on the couch all day nursing my headache and knitting the baby bathrobe. I now have the whole body and one sleeve totally done, and the 2nd sleeve cast on.
4. Frozen pizza, which is inexpensive enough to be affordable, but easy enough to make when I have a headache going on its 36th hour.
5. Air conditioning, since it was stupidly sticky-hot in this apartment today.
6. My wonderful husband, who understands about my headaches, dragged the 50ish pound air conditioner up 3 flights of stairs, and walked down to the CVS to get that frozen pizza I mentioned.

One day, 2 billion activities June 14, 2009

This was the longest, most full Saturday I can remember having in ages. I ran some errands in the morning (including dropping my camera at Best Buy, they’re sending it off for repairs) and spent most of the early afternoon helping Nicole move. Her new apartment is very cute and very her, and we got the whole move done by about 2pm. Pretty impressive. She got us beer and pizza to thank us, and then we went home for a nap. By the time I got up, it was dinner time, but I still managed to make dinner, knit a huge amount on my baby bathrobe, and watch about 7 hours of television while doing it before bedtime (aka right now), all with a headache.

I am very nearly done with the right front panel now, having gotten the back done a couple of hours ago. After that, all I have left are the sleeves, hood, and belt. It’s coming along at a much better clip now, which is great- I’m starting to think I might actually get it done by the end of June! My goal for tomorrow is to get one sleeve totally done. We’ll see how I do.

Juxtaposition June 12, 2009

In the interest of getting more knitting done, I will sometimes knit in front of the tv rather than the computer. Less distractions. However, as I sat there, knitting on the upper back panel of the baby bathrobe, it occurred to me…

Is there something implicitly wrong with knitting baby clothes during a Forensic Files marathon?

Likea Hat? Nooooo. June 12, 2009

When I was little, my family frequently babysat a child of a friend of ours. She was very little, and couldn’t read yet, but she loved the Dr. Seuss book “Go Dog Go” and would frequently “read” it to herself. It consisted of mostly “Do, Dog, Do.” *turn page* “Do, Dog, Do.” Over and over, but at the “Do you like my hat?” parts, she’d just say “Likea hat? Noooo.”

That’s how it felt at work yesterday, trying to get my coworker to pick up his baby’s panda hat. I kept reminding him, and he kept saying “in a minute” and putting it off, until I was starting to think he didn’t want the thing anymore. It turned out, as he told me at 4:30pm as he left the building, that he’d forgotten to bring cash to pay me with, so he couldn’t take the hat.

He couldn’t've just, you know, told me that at 9am when I reminded him the first time. No. That would make sense.

Anyway, I started the left front side of the bathrobe past the split yesterday. Only got a few rows in as work was really busy, and I’m not likely to make much progress today either as Teresa is out and I’m slow at doing her job now. At least I caught up- she’d left several hours of work she hadn’t gotten to last night, so I had to plow through that and then tackle the morning stuff as well. Hopefully the rest of the day will be slow.

On giant-headed babies June 10, 2009

The panda hat, it turns out, was too small. This baby, though only a few months old, already has a head so large as to need a size very close to the one I made for his 12 year old sister.

No, I’m not making a whole new one. I just tore back to the last increase and did one more inc. row, and now I’m doing the body rows again. I’ve got 3 or 4 rows left, so I will finish it tomorrow at work.

In bigger news (but not bigger head, I hope) the bathrobe is at the split-for-armholes point now! I didn’t get to split it today, thanks to giant-headed doom-baby, but I will do that tomorrow after the hat is complete (again).  Can’t wait to get the body done and move on to the sleeves.

Babies! Babies everywhere! June 9, 2009

At the moment, I am in some stage of the process of helping clothe FOUR babies. That doesn’t even count my 2 year old neice, as she is now just about in “toddler” territory, and what I’m making her for Christmas isn’t clothes (no, I’m not telling what it is).

1. My friend Rose, in California, is hopefully finding out the gender of her baby as I type, if not earlier today. I’m not yet sure what I’m making for her.

2. An online friend who shall remain unnamed is having a surprise blanket made for her, and I’m helping with that as well as knitting some tiny shoes.

3. Then there’s my coworker of Panda Hat fame, who requested another one for his infant son. I finished it today, sorry for the sad pathetic photo (again, camera not so happy).

4. I am still of course working on that baby bathrobe for Cory’s best friend’s baby, due at the end of this month. Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far (I’m about 3 rows from the split for sleeves, now).

Let the Sims 3 case tell you exactly how big that swath of red seed stitch really is. Ah well, soon I’ll be on to shorter rows- faster knitting!

Maybe I should start blogging in the morning June 9, 2009

This time I have a real excuse- I was working on a promo for the podcast, which is still not actually working very well. The problem is that I haven’t really heard many knitting podcast promos, so I have nothing to go by.

Anyway, I’m nearly to the sleeve split on that bathrobe now. I have… maybe 15 or 16 rows left. Once I get to that point it ought to go faster, merely because the rows are shorter so I’ll have more visible progress, which always motivates me. I’ll attempt to provide photos tonight, assuming my crippled camera cooperates. I still haven’t gone to Best Buy to get a replacement. I probably will on Saturday, because we’re helping Nicole move and she lives fairly close to a Best Buy.

Incidentally, episode 9 of the podcast is up! I hope we’ll get good downloads this time, Ep 8 was a bit low.