And Now for Something Completely Different

A departure from my typical Eye Candy Friday.

Enjoy the weekend!

Let's Do the Time Warp Again

With apologies to Rocky Horror Picture Show fans. (It cracks me up that Wikipedia's entry for "Time Warp" is about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. They tell you straight off, that if you're looking "For the concept of traveling to different points in time, see Time travel.")

Anyway, I've been a bit distracted by my own time warp here.

Time Warp, Exhibit One, Alice:
This is my progress on Alice.

Glacially slow? Yes. But not quite the time warp I'm talking about.

This is my row counter.


I am supposed to decrease on every eighth row. My row counter says I'm there, but I know that the row counter was just on "3". I could maybe believe "4". There's no way it should be on 8. But when I count the rows from the last decrease, sure enough--8. And this is the second time this has happened on this sweater. I seem to be missing bits of time... If it happens again, I'm going to have to consider the possibility that I'm a victim of alien abduction. (Not shocking, considering the number of UFOs around here...) Hey, at least they let me bring my knitting.

Time Warp, Exhibit Two, The Never-Ending Sock:
It seems that no matter how much knitting time I devote to this sock for the DBF,

It never gets done. (I swear, it's like a Winchester Mystery sock. Let's hope I don't wind up knitting a stairway to nowhere...) Started in August (pre-blog), introduced on the blog in September, updated on the blog in November, and I still haven't finished the first one! Well, I suppose that's one way to avoid "Second Sock Syndrome"...

Time Warp, Exhibit Three, Hey, Where'd This Hat Come From?:
And then there's this. The strangest of them all. In the midst of all this S-L-O-W knitting (including the slow knitting that I apparently do unconsciously, but still very slowly), this appears:

Yep. It's a hat. I was just about done with the DBF's scarf

(not really this red in real life...)

(this is closer, but it's not really this purple, either.)

so I figured I'd start on a hat for him. I found a top-down pattern, but wanted to play around with the pattern a bit before I started on his hat. I grabbed a wool/hemp blend out of the stash, and the next thing I knew, I had a hat. Me. The world's slowest knitter. Time warp, I'm telling you.

Next post will be more scarf and hat details. I'm headed to bed now. This Time Warp thing is a bit more than I can take.

("Say--Do any of you guys know how to Madison?")

Tranquil

For Eye Candy Friday, I present Fallen Leaf Lake in South Lake Tahoe.

Have a wonderful weekend!

What Can You Do...

...between San Francisco and New York?

If you're me, you can do this:



I'm a slow knitter, so if you're not me, you could probably do matching wristwarmers or something. And you'd probably even get it right... I had a hard time twisting before joining the round the first few times (only because I was specifically instructed to do so, I'm sure), but it looks like I more than made up for it by twisting twice (? I think...) on the final product.

Still, I'm happy with it. It's the "Enchanted Evening Ear Covering" from the Winter 2005 Interweave Knits (part of the "Cover Your Ears" staff project). It doesn't really suit me as an ear covering, but I like it as a mobius-like scarf. And it was very cool to start it in San Francisco, and wear it off the plane in New York! (Of course, I didn't have scissors or a needle, so I had to break the yarn and tuck the ends in the back, but it was still pretty fun.

Now, to find a project for the flight home...

Snapping Out of It

Another Mendocino picture for eye candy Friday.

I'll be traveling next week, so I'll try to get you something a little different for next Friday. (But really, who gets tired of seeing the ocean?)

And if I really get my butt in gear, you'll see photos of two FOs. I finished the scarf for the DBF and a hat for me. (The hat's a little small, but it works.)

I don't do resolutions, but my plan is more (and hopefully better) photography for 2007, so whatever this blog becomes (or doesn't become), my goal is more and better photos.

I'm seriously considering "joining" (or snapping along with) Stephanie's "Snap a Dozen Days". We shall see. For now, I leave you with yet another shot of the Mendocino coast.

Melancholy

In spite of a wonderful start to 2007, I'm in a rather melancholy mood. And I have no real reason to be.

Beginnings and Endings

It is the end of my vacation (I couldn't get the week between Christmas and New Year's off, so I took the week after New Year's), which is part of it. I really don't want to go back to work. And in the four work days I was off, our general manager announced his resignation and left. I have concerns about his replacement.

But this is all to be expected, since the company is being acquired. This week should be full of changes to herald the new year as a new company--and even more changes. Thus, I'm looking for a new job.

I must remind myself that endings make room for new beginnings, and not all endings are sad. (And not all beginnings are happy.) If I lose this job, I will miss the income, but that's about it. However, I will miss it sorely, and would far prefer to replace the job with another, so as not to disturb the income. (Of course, there's no guarantee that I'll lose this one--just a "been there, done that" knee-jerk reaction to working for a high-tech company that's being acquired. You know somebody's going to go, and I haven't even been here a year.)

So, as is tradition for this time of the year, I feel forced to reflect on my life and determine what I want to do/can do/should do now.

I am grateful that this is just my job. For the first time in a very long time, I'm happy about my personal life. And perhaps that is just a bit of this melancholy, too. 2006 was a very good year for me, personally. 2007 is off to a fabulous start on a personal level (although not so much on a professional level). But the future, though full of promise, is uncertain, and I'm not much of a gambler. Still, there is much out there to be won. But do I dare ask for more happiness? There is a very large part of me that sees that as being ungrateful for what I have, and that is most assuredly not the case. And yet, one nurtures the wonderful things in one's life, hoping to see them grow...

And then there's the blog. I have been woefully neglectful over the past few weeks. I have been to a change of command ceremony, a wedding, and a quiet New Year's celebration. (Again, endings and beginnings...) I have shared Christmas traditions, and started new ones. I have finished two scarves and have started and almost finished a hat. Which is too small. And which I will finish anyway. I have no pictures. I made no blog entries. But I'm not sure anyone else reads this thing anyway. I am beginning to question my need to blog, and specifically, my need to blog about knitting. I love to read the other blogs out there, but I don't know that I have anything unique to offer to the world of knitters. So over the next few months, there may be a bit of a metamorphosis here. Or I'll get over this black bile and go back to posting pictures of partial knits and knitting-related thoughts. But I suspect I'll transform this space (or another) into more of a travel blog. More endings. More beginnings...

All this just to say, "Sorry I haven't been posting--I have a lot on my mind right now."

Stay tuned, if you're so inclined.