Organization nation…

I’m trying to get my brain in gear for school, which starts next week. Yikes.

Last semester I discovered that I don’t depend as much on my hand-written to-do lists and calendars as I had in years past. I had a tried and true system that evolved during my undergrad years, and that I adapted for grad school. Somehow, this past semester, I rarely used it. I still enjoy my little note pad, which comes in handy whenever I have an idea that needs jotting down. But the system as a whole just doesn’t fit me anymore.

Hence, a new tool: Netvibes!

I was made aware of this tool by the Spinstah ages ago, and never really got around to figuring out if it’ll be useful for me. Well, today I spent some way too much time playing with all the widgets, creating tabs, etc. It’s quite fun, if you like organizational tools. I can have access to it pretty much wherever I go, without carrying around my large notebook. I have a lot of things to keep track of, and each area of my life has its own tab and sets of to do lists.

It rules.

MJ slippers again

I just noticed that my non-blah, blah, blahg pages are not linked on the main page. The template I installed aeons ago does not include those pages. Hmm. I’ll have to go into the files and put that in. But I’m lazy, and this is easier for the time being:

Here is a link to the page that has a link to the PDF of the pattern.

Woo! My first pattern actually written down!

remember that list?

rusty orange hat

I have only completed a couple of things off of that list from the other day. I wanted to make two skirts and an apron, but only got one skirt done. I did, however, finish M’s book. (And repaired it.) It is now wrapped and ready to hand over to her on Saturday, hooray! (Along with the last of the dish rags, which I’m sure she’s happy to see the end of.)

I’ve also finished the not-so-fun stuff that I was supposed to do (school stuff, mostly). I’ve gotten a couple more projects done that were not on that list (see previous post.)

Christmas knitting is now in full swing. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to post any details regarding presents for people who actually read this thing. Though, I might be surprised, I’m pretty sure my family doesn’t read it. (Hi Mom and Dad! Just in case.)

The hat above is going to be for one of my brothers. Here it is modeled by JeT. I tried it on, and it fits me just fine. I come from a large-headed family, so if it fits me, I’m sure it will fit my brother. For hat details, click through to Flickr.

I’ve got a chart with all the presents I need to make between now and Christmas. If I didn’t get the planning done before school started, I wouldn’t be able to stick to any sort of schedule. I’ve picked mostly really easy stuff to make, which is perfect for the trains. Anything a bit trickier (or larger) will be my at home knitting.

Interesting post, yes? I thought so.

A crafty weekend

Arrrrrrgh

This weekend was quite fun. And productive. I love it when a plan comes together.

Throughout the entire weekend, I finished M’s bridal shower keepsake book, pictured here. I think it came out quite well. I have to do one repair on it, and let that set, before I can pop it in the post to be sent to its proper owner. I think she will like it.

Click through for more photos of the book, and for photos of all the other stuff (crafty or otherwise) that we did this weekend. The photos have all the crafty details, etc.

Friday evening, MO came over to watch LOTR with JeT and I. During that time, I finished the yellow skirt that I had been planning for ages. (I never did get around to making the green one, nor the apron, that I had wanted to make this weekend, but oh well. Sewing always takes longer than I anticipate.) After I finished (and modeled) the skirt, I worked on the knitted bonnet. I finished the head portion that evening.

Saturday morning was absolutely perfect. I love waking up to crisp, clear, blue skies, and slightly chilly. A little taste of autumn to come. We packed leftovers and went to Massasoit State Park for a picnic and a lovely walk. It took us a while to actually find a trail, because the trails don’t really match what’s on the map. They sort of do, but it’s the difference between the trail going behind campsites, as they appear on the map, or going through campsites (with people camping in them), which was the reality. After several apologies, we found a trail whose relationship with the one depicted in the map was fairly consistent. It was a fun afternoon, though.

That evening, we had a couple of friends over (MO and Rrrrr) for brownie icecream sundaes and a fire. It was quite unplanned, hence only two friends were able to attend, but fun nonetheless. I love building fires. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Luckily for me (and everyone around me) I have a stable enough personality that my fire love doesn’t tend toward the criminal. Pyrophiliac? Is that a word?

On Sunday we had another not-so-secret-anymore meeting to finish the post-wedding gift for M and the Bohninator. We got off to a slow start, so I was able to finish the neck portion of the bonnet, as well as one of the I cords. We have our next meeting tonight, and hopefully that will go more smoothly, now that we kind of know what we want to do. Sunday night I finished the other I cord, and did all the finishing work for the bonnet. I didn’t bother washing and blocking it, though.

I’ve made a list of all the stuff I have to make for Christmas this year. It’s really long. And there are only 18 weeks until Christmas. (Don’t panic.) By my calculations I have to finish at least one or two items each week to make the deadline. And that’s not even calculating shipping times. EEK! Next year, I’m starting in May.

Berries, games, and music

Bountiful harvest

It was another busy summer weekend, hooray! The weather this month has not been horrible, and I’m super excited about that. August usually has numerous stretches of unbearable days, but luckily this year we’ve had several good days in between the icky. Today is possibly one of the nicest days ever.

Saturday was pretty nice, too. JeT and I went with my old college roommate and her parents to pick blueberries at Eastover Farm in Rochester (owned and operated by the Hiller family since 1912). Tons of berries everywhere! We picked 6 pounds and pretty much stayed in the same spot the whole time. (I went back today and picked a few more pounds. In the hour and a half that I was there, I only picked from three bushes.)

Saturday was also M’s birthday party (her actual birthday was Thursday), which was a lot of fun. We played a pop culture trivia game. I am no good with trivia. I don’t know anyone’s name. Under the pressure of the competition, I nearly forgot Alan Rickman’s name for goodness’ sake! It was a super fun game, though. Thanks to The Bohnsternator (I’m trying to come up with blog names for you all) for putting together the questions and for moderating. Rrrrrr (you know, like pirates?) made us all wear hats with our team names on them, and photographs of ourselves, in case we forgot what we looked like. Our team was called The Noblets, after the character Chuck Noblet, played by Stephen Colbert, in Strangers with Candy. (See more photos of that evening here.)

Leaving the party was a bit of an adventure. Unfortunately someone’s house a block over was on fire. The streets were filled with police cars and fire trucks. Our car was not parked on the same street as the house fire, but it was just around the corner. Near a fire hydrant. So, we were blocked in. One of the neighbors came over to move her car so I could wiggle out of the space between the curb and the fire truck. I ended up having to back up the hill, maneuvering around the fire truck, and a police car. I panicked a bit because all these people were on the sidewalk watching me. Weird. But I’d rather have to do some awkward driving than have my house burn down, so I’m not really complaining.

Sunday afternoon we drove out to western MA for a Great Big Sea concert. They are from Newfoundland and they rock! We picked up Blake (can’t think of a good name for him), picked up SEA from the Eric Carle Museum where she volunteers on Sundays, got some dinner from this great restaurant in Northampton, and made our way to Look Park, where the concert was to be. We parked and then began the trek to the outdoor theater.

We started walking towards one particular pavilion only to find that there was only a handful of old people listening to Kenny G type music. Didn’t seem like the type of crowd, nor the type of opening act appropriate for the awesomeness that is GBS. So we asked the uniformed folks in the golf cart where we should go, and eventually made it to the correct location.

The concert rocked. They played all the hits. (Or as they say “all the hit.”) I danced until my feet were dirty and sore (no shoes! plushy grass!) They are so much fun, and this venue was a great way to showcase their talents. They fit perfectly in an outdoor place or in a pub. They make me want to go back to Newfoundland. The opening band was pretty good, too: Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers. They did this great pop culture medley set to one of their folky tunes. It ruled.

All in all a fantastic weekend. I’m seriously enjoying this summer. I usually hate summer, and I’ll probably hate it again before too long, once this gorgeous weather goes away. I don’t mind the rainy, overcast days, but hate, hate, hate! the hot, humid ones. Days like today, though, are absolutely perfect.

Set your phasers on stun!

I go through these phases, right? Where apparently I’m an adolescent. I’m not even talking about my penchant for toilet humor. No, this is more of the “I have these specific things to do, but I’d rather go out, or maybe make some food, because I don’t feel like dealing with the things I have to do” kind of thing. Aren’t we supposed to outgrow that shit? I mean, really. If I had to live with me, I’d be really annoyed. Not only do I not get what I need to get done, but I whine about it, too. Ugh.

So, anyway, I’ve made a list of all the things I need to get done, when I need to do them, etc, between now and Tuesday. Much of it is just stuff that I’ve ignored forever, and now I have to deal with it. Some of it is actually fun, crafty things, like making a couple of skirts. See? I’m even avoiding the fun stuff. Annoying.

Right, so, I’ve got my list. I’ve cleaned off the crafty table upstairs (you know, the thing that’s been impersonating a mountain for the last several months), and I’m ready to go. Well, first I need to excavate the sewing machine. I have three; you’d think at least one of them would be accessible, right? Um, not so much. Now that I’m on a roll, though, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Crafty items on the list for this weekend:

• Finish M’s book (belated shower present, that she already knows about). Finally picked out the fabric for the covers. My fabric stash is big enough, you’d think this would have been easier. Hopefully it’ll be ready to hand over tomorrow evening.
• Two skirts. I have the fabric picked out for those. One green, one yellow. I think I’m going to make a slip to wear under them as well. The yellow one is a bit see through, and I don’t really want to line it, so a slip would be great. Plus, I have that really big lace that M gave me when she was cleaning out her craft supplies before she moved. I think I have zippers for these somewhere in my notions stash. Otherwise, I’m doing them with buttons, or hell, elastic, just to get them made.
• One apron. I have this great fabric with little folk dancers on it. It’s awesome! It’s white with little people in multi-colored outfits, so it’ll go great with many of my skirts.

There’s other, less fun, stuff to do, of course, but who wants to hear about paying the bills and organizing the household files. Whee! I’m going to post photos of the craftiness as I work on them, so there’s something to look forward to.

Not quite the plan

MJs on my feet

Hey, remember when I said I wasn’t going to do anything else (besides the dishcloths) until I’d sorted out my hibernating projects? Yeah, well, um, so I went to visit a friend the other day, and she had this pattern, see, and then we found ourselves at the craft store, and then before I knew it I was buying yarn and needles for a project I didn’t even know I wanted to knit. And there you go. Lovely little Mary Jane slippers to pad around the house in (when it gets cooler). I have a stripey pair that a friend gave me ages ago, but I’ve always wanted to make a pair (or several) so that I wouldn’t be heart broken when those inevitably wear out.

I had to re-write the pattern myself, since the pattern she downloaded had so many mistakes. I think it may have been a combination of a couple of mistakes combined with my misunderstanding of some of the pattern directions. In the end it was easier and faster to just do the whole thing myself. I didn’t like a couple of the choices the pattern writer had made, and so did things my way.

The sole and the upper are knit separately, then pieced together, and the strap is knit from picking up stitches on one side and grafting them onto the other. It’s pretty straight forward. Whenever I’m making something that has to be pieced together, I slip the first stitch of every row, which gives you a lovely chain selvedge. It is also helpful on exposed edges, because you get a nice clean line of chain stitches around the edge of the piece.

One was pieced together using Kitchener Stitch mattress stitch to make the seams, wrong sides together. The other was piece together with a crochet chain stitch, right sides together. The former looks better on the sides of the slipper, but neither method looks nice at the toe and heel, where the increases and decreases make seaming a little uneven looking. The latter, however, is much faster. Since these aren’t really “show off” pieces, I think I’d opt for the crochet seams over the sewn seams any day.
These don’t really match, because I was experimenting with the pattern as I went along. I must have knit and reknit the pieces so many times as I modified the pattern. If I had just knit them in one go, I think this project would have taken about 5 hours to complete, and that’s being quite generous with the time. A great weekend project.

Knit on size 7/4.5mm needles, I used Patons Classic Wool in grey. Cheap and soft.

Woah! The hell?

Um, if you’re coming to this site and wondering what the hell is up with the weird format and what not, or if things aren’t working right, and stuff… Um, yeah, I have no idea how to fix it.

It seems Word Press is resetting itself to defaults, and sometimes I can’t access pages (no permission, it says) and sometimes I can. Sometimes it says my database is out of date and needs to be upgraded (followed their links to do so, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t). Keeps going back and forth between working and not working.

Anyway, I’m on it. Or I will be on it tomorrow. Until then…

“You can’t knit for crack hos!”

The quote of the evening, indeed.

Thursday I went to see the Yarn Harlot speak at the Burlington, MA Borders. It was a fun evening: I met up with The Spinstah and Andrea in Somerville, and Andrea drove us in her delightfully air conditioned vehicle to Borders (eventually, but we got there in plenty of time). There was a great turnout. Underpants were thrown. (Seriously.) I started another ball band dishcloth for Missy. Good times. Stephanie gave pretty much the same talk as at Webs in May, but with some fun additions. We learned all about Kinnearing, for example. There were many young knitters in attendance, as well as many more male knitters than I had seen at previous knitting events, which was super awesome. I saw Jess and Casey of Ravelry, but they were surrounded by their own group of fans, and I was too shy to go say hi. I do covet a “Where my stitches at?” button, though. After the talk, we (eventually) made it back to Davis Square and had a nice meal at a diner. A lovely evening with friends.

I’ve been having so much fun on Ravelry looking at patterns, checking out the groups, reading about people’s projects, all sorts of stuff. It’s such a great site, and I haven’t even explored it fully yet. I’ve got a few things in my queue to look forward to, and several hibernating projects to deal with. My goal for the rest of the summer is to deal with the hibernators and then pick out one project from the queue to work on next and start planning for that. I’m a one project at a time kind of knitter, who just happens to have several on the needles at once. I can’t work on several things all at once. If I don’t focus, nothing gets done. I’m a pretty fast knitter/crocheter so there’s really no reason to have stalled on so many projects.

I hate August, but I do love that feeling of organization that comes before the start of term. (My last semester! Yeah! Woo!)