Skip to main content

Minerva

So I was walking the boy to school this morning, and I saw a little girl walking along with her hoodie on backwards. She was eating chips, which I thought was kind of gross, because all those crumbs would be getting in the catch basin there. And I thought to myself, "Wow, I am so fashion out of it, that cover on the TKGA magazine a couple of months back, where the hood was being worn in the front, that's actually in style." TKGA is totally fashion forward, and I'm out of it again. And then we got down to the school, and I saw more children dressed like this, and I thought to myself, wow, this trend sure came out of nowhere. And then I saw a child wearing his backpack on his stomach, and the boy said to me, "Oh, mom, it's backwards day!" And he strapped his backpack on his front too.

Phew. Spirit day. I am relieved.

Webs is having their annual birthday sale, and it includes Harrisville Shetland style. I bought two cones of this last year, and it comes in a great range of colors and the price is awesome. So, if I can finish off three more projects, I'd like to buy six cones (a cone counts as a ball, and I have three balls already in the ball-buying bank, BBB for short). But I thought to myself, "Self, what if this stuff sucks to knit with? What if it cuts an actual bleeding hole in my left index finger? What if it skews?" The skewing is more of a concern, because Pat at Kirtland's Yarn Barn told me, when I asked a couple of years ago on KBTH, that she's had customers that had problems with skewing and weren't able to correct it. So on Monday night I pulled out Barbara Walker's "Knitting from the Top" and started a top-down set-in-sleeve sweater. For this, I learned the invisible cast-on. And after two inches, no skewing.

Last night I also learned how to crochet seams. This is not very hard. I would say I inherently knew how to do this already, having picked out an invisible seam before. Picking them out, the trick is to find the strand on the back, and then you can use it as a rip cord. I chose to crochet the seams because I was using a very elastic-y ribbon yarn, Filatura di Crosa Pasta, and I couldn't see running it through a needle, and I couldn't imagine using just regular thread or anything else in a needle. Basically I couldn't imagine poking a needle through this yarn. So, I crocheted the seams. And it worked very well, if I do say so myself.

Popular posts from this blog

Best TW feedback ever

Over at the dayjob, SMEs are feverishly trying to get documents back to me all marked up, in preparation for the release that's supposed to happen the week I'm back from VP. Today's best comment: Unfortunately not true. SMEs, they're so cute.

What I read: August 2023

"The Absolute Book" by Elizabeth Knox. I got it for Christmas. It was delightful, even if maybe some stuff wasn't explained completely. Or maybe that's part of why it was delightful.  "Crucial conversations" By Joseph Grenny and three other old white men. Another office book club selection. The word "candor" comes up a lot. I really resented this book.  LHC #220: "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. There was a girl at my previous company who wanted to have an office book club, and she had this book on her desk for months and months. I can totally understand this. I found portions crazy stressful to read. Like, I would be skipping ahead to see how much more in the section, could I get through it, pacing around, etc. I wanted to know how it ended, sure, but I was having weird stress dreams and stuff. If it wasn't a library book I might not have finished it at all. It was such a relief when Boris showed up again and something happened. I di

What I read: March, 2010

"The Man from St. Petersburg" Ken Follett. Oh. My. God. I read it because we had two copies lying around. Ick. This book made me feel dirty. I made some negative comment about this book to my sister, who repled "I've read every book he's ever written." I think she's mad at me now. This book was all tell, no show. There was no tension. The sex was funny. It reminded me of my dad's novel. It seemed well-researched, from what I can tell. When my friend said that of my karate-zombie novel, I took it as damning with faint praise, so there you go. There was no female character with whom I could identify. Or male character, for that matter. I don't need a woman to be a role model. I really strongly disliked this book. "Wanderlust" Rebecca Solnit. I'd come across her name in a discussion of the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, and came across this when I was looking for her other book on the TPL website. As walking is an integral part o