pepperknit

When I cast on for the second Zephirine sock, I was spending a girls’ weekend discussing life and boys and the works, and I guess I was pretty distracted, because I had to restart it three times (I kept increasing wrong). Well, I got on the bus to Maryland for Thanksgiving and was merrily knitting along, and then I realized that I’d ultimately cast on more stitches than I had for the first sock!

So much for taking “better notes.” Maybe I should start taking “any notes.”

Anyway, I’m not quite sure what to do now. These socks will be for me, rather than for my now-ex-boyfriend’s sister, and in truth, my right foot is larger than my left, so perhaps I should just continue on and make two different-sized socks. Or I can knit it at the larger stitch count and see if it’s just a better sock, and then redo the first? Decisions, decisions.

I still love these socks, but please excuse me for not wanting to look at them right now, knowing their original recipient is no longer my family. You’ll have to wait for the pattern. I need some good, simple, therapy knitting, but I’m not sure what to make. Thoughts?

I’ll leave you with a pretty picture from my walk home. I think I really love New York.

I don’t feel 29 today. Is this what happens as you get older? Birthdays stop feeling so special? I’ll still bask in the adulation of my family and friends, naturally, and get a kick out of hundreds of thousands of people all across the country (heck, world–there are expats, right?) eating my preferred birthday cake: pumpkin pie. They’ll be celebrating, and I’m going to share in it all. Hope everyone has a fabulous Thanksgving! Eat too much yummy food, watch some football, and be thankful for another year.

I’ll leave you with some 29 trivia, lifted from Wikipedia:

29 is the tenth prime number, and also the third primorial prime, the next prime number as well as primorial prime being thirty-one, with which it comprises a twin prime.
29 is the sixth Sophie Germain prime.
29 is a Lucas prime, a Pell prime, and a tetranacci number.
29 is an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of the form 3n − 1.
None of the first 29 natural numbers have more than two different prime factors. This is the longest such consecutive sequence.
29 is a Markov number, appearing in the solutions to x2 + y2 + z2 = 3xyz: {2, 5, 29}, {2, 29, 169}, {5, 29, 433}, {29, 169, 14701}, etc.
29 is a Perrin number, preceded in the sequence by 12, 17, 22.
29 is the atomic number of copper
29 is approximately the length of the lunar month.
29 is the number of bones in a normal human skull.
29 is the number of letters in the Finnish, Faroese and Norwegian alphabets.
29 is the highest possible score in a hand of Cribbage.

Let’s see if you guys can spot the locations. Tricky test . . .

1. A roach crawls into your lap at dinner.
Yes, an honest-to-goodness, 1.5-inch long cockroach appears on your lap just moments after your food is served. So: Did this happen in New York City? Perhaps in the Lower East Side? If you said, “Yes,” you win! A roach did show up in my lap on Friday night. I was able to pick up my napkin (nicely layed out on my lap) and shake the beast off onto the floor. Everyone was grossed out, but it was no big surprise, and we dug into our food (quite good; I’m kind of amazed I got through it).

2. You knit in a car.
A car, not a taxi. Not a subway. And not a bus. A car, driven by someone you know. Does this happen in the city? I suppose it can to some people, but not to me. This was definitely NOT a New York event.

Do you like them? I kind of love these socks. They’re my latest design, and they’re a gift for the boy’s youngest sister. I’ve even got a name for them already: Zephirine. I picked the name because the lace panel I used reminded me of a rose, the delightfully pink yarn (actually, peony) was like a rose, and Zephirine is the name of a kind of rose.

The pattern will be available soon. I’ve cast on for the second sock, am taking better notes, and will be debuting an FO soon.

3. In order to open the oven door fully, you are required to open the refrigerator.
I know, I know, this one is really hard. Because it’s really common in spacious homes to have to maneuver your way around every little thing like this. Because in the suburbs or, hell, any other city in the States, existing in miniscule places is soooo common.

Oh, come on, it’s a New York thing! You knew it all along. I hope it’s clear in the picture the several-inch overlap I’ve got going here.

4. You go to a “sporting goods store” and find yourself in what amounts to a museum of hunting.

Crazy to think this isn’t NYC, huh?? Wow, was this nowhere near or like New York, in every way. The place is incredible. It’s enormous. Think of the biggest LL Bean you’ve been to, and then add space for displays of animals set in a “natural” setting–with live fish in moving water. There were zebras, an elephant, crocodiles, lions, gazelles, a moose, bears, wild turkeys, muskox, polar bears, badgers, beavers, and deer, deer, and more deer. My friend knew I’d get a kick out of the absurdity of it, so we stopped at Cabela’s on our way to visit a friend.

Thanks for playing my little game. How’d YOU do at answering the questions?

My old college roommate sent me my first real mail at my new apartment–a plant kit with a message printed on the seed itself! There is scant information about what kind of plant this will become, but it sprouted within two weeks or so. Here’s the various stages of its emergence into the world. It was fun to watch it sprout; I have it sitting on the window ledge behind the bed, so I see it every morning. Thanks again, hon!

Rachel just posted her 10 knitterly things, and it jogged my memory–I’ve been pondering this one for weeks now. Mine is a potentially offensive list. Please don’t take it all personally, they’re all just my opinions, and they’re things I generally keep to myself. But this is the forum to air them out. So without further ado:

1. I do not find Clapotis attractive or interesting in the slightest.
2. I can’t stand variegated yarn with many colors, because I think the pooling is butt-ugly. (Mottled color is A-OK.)
3. I can’t imagine ever trying my hand at spinning. I’m uninterested. I feel guilt about this, though. It’s like, I’m a knitter, I should be interested in the whole process, the way the fiber gets to me all plied and whatnot. But I’m not intrigued at all by roving or spinning. I’ve read enough to understand it, and that’s enough.
4. Lest you think I’m all negativity and knitting-monogomous, I desperately want to weave.
5. Back to cranky revelations: I’m not all that excited by yarn. There are beautiful yarns, there are yummy yarns to pet, but I don’t go into a yarn store and become enraptured with it all. I’m pretty much a “I’m going to make this, so I need to buy that” kind of girl. I appreciate yarn greatly, but I don’t covet it. In the past I’ve bought yarn with no purpose, and it’s still sitting around. My goal this coming year is to use it all up and attempt a relatively stashless life.
6. Except for sock yarn, which I find satisfying in a completely different way. Not variegateds, though (see above). There’s something about small-gauge yarn that I love.
7. Despite the fact that I’ve been knitting for years and years and consider myself a very good knitter, I don’t have all that much to show for it. I’ve knit hats for everyone I know, it seems, and started countless sweaters that have never been finished (or were worn once). I wish I had an impressive sweater/handcrafted objects section of my closet.
8. I am completely unintimidated by knitting. No pattern ever seems too hard. I applaud other knitters who seem to have a similar perspective–the ones who learn to knit one day, make a scarf, and then immediately cast on for something more complicated.
9. I could spend an entire weekend sitting on the couch watching TV/movies and knitting, with no venturing outdoors, and be perfectly happy. In fact, I’ve done this before. But it’s embarrassing, because I think I should be doing other things and seeming like a productive member of society or something.
10. I would love for everyone in the world to know how to knit! I’ve taught countless numbers of friends and acquaintences, because I hope that some of them will get the kind of joy and satisfaction out of it that I do. For some it sticks, for others it doesn’t, and that’s ok; at least they’ve got the framework to find out.

It’s been a while since I’ve had any eye candy to share.

Hard to believe this is in the heart of the city, huh? I’m not even deep in Central Park to take this picture–I’m on the perimeter of the park, looking in. Happy Friday, everyone!

I saw on Jessica’s blog that Deb was doing a meme/contest regarding November calendar pages. Being that November is also my birthday month, I had to participate!

When I was growing up, my best friend’s family and my family were incredbly close. We had a funny sort of synchronisity with a lot of our birthdays, too–her sister’s birthday is the day before my mom’s, hers is the day before my dad’s, and I was actually due on her mother’s birthday (Oct. 29). My mom and little sis were impossible during the entire month of July, their Birthday Month. They would bring it up at every opportunity. My friend and my dad fashioned themselves more subtle and sophisticated, but would find ways to mention their birthday month (August) all the time, too. The rest of us all get our own birthday months (in order, too: Sept, Oct, Nov), and we found ways to be obnoxious about having whole months to ourselves. All this to say that, well, even though I don’t expect people to celebrate me for the entire month, I have strong feelings toward the month of November.

This year, my birthday is on Thanksgiving! I don’t know why I didn’t mark it on the calendar; if I had to guess, I suppose it’s because this is my work calendar, and anyway, I know my own birthday. The photos in the calendar are all X-rays of flowers. I love the austere black and whites, and I think they’re very beautiful. However, I would like to ignore the name of the calendar, because it is embarrassing to purchase or be seen with “Flower Spirits.”

In other news:

• Neosporin should be a controlled substance, that stuff works so well (as I know from having scraped my knuckle badly on an exposed brick wall in our stairwell while carrying a box out this past weekend).
• Walking 2 miles to work really is better than sitting on the bus. You don’t get to work and feel tired! You’re awake and invogorated, plus you see some actual nature (though you were more than a bit turned around and lost in Central Park).
• Teaching coworkers to knit during lunch breaks is satisfying therapy for both of you.
• And playing with cable patterns can be fun but confusing. Here’s a peek at what I’ve been working on (note, the cable pattern is not my invention, but I’m modifying it a bit and that’s why I’ve needed to chart it out for myself).