P2, K2, P1, K2, blah blah blah...

It looks like this weekend is going to be a little light on the blog posts. Basically, I'm just focusing on schoolwork and this:



It's been lovely warm this past couple days and I've got fingers crossed that it holds for at least the upcoming week. And when I say warm, I mean like "de-fuzz the fishbelly white lower extremities and paint the toenails" kind of warm. I have to admit, there's something rather wacky about sitting out on my balcony in shorts, getting a sunburn, and knitting a wool hat.

There's a popular expression, "it's five o'clock somewhere". I suppose it's winter somewhere too.

Dead woman knitting

Not long ago, I posted about the upcoming knitting competition, Hat Attack.  Just to refresh your memory, the concept is that everyone who signs up has a target to knit a hat for, and an assassin who is knitting a hat for you, and everyone is using the same pattern, which is released on the first day of the war. So A knits for B, B knits for C, C knits for D, D knits for E, and so on and so on, in one huge circle.  Death occurs when you receive a hat from your assassin, (not when they finish it, when you actually receive it, this is important) and if you are not done with your hat, you then mail the Work in Progress along with your target info to your assassin so they can finish off the hat and assassinate your target for you.  (Because, of course, you are dead now.)

I signed up feeling very enthused and decided in advance not to engage in any of the "smack talk" that was so popular in the Ravelry group.  I planned on a silent, but deadly strategy, and figured that my current unemployed status, flexible schedule and living alone would work in my favor. The day before the war started, I planned to increase the amount of studying I usually do in one day, to get a little ahead, and then for the next two days to use studying just to occupy me when I needed to take a break from knitting because my hands were cramping! Then on day three, the hat would go out  in the mail - mission accomplished.

But as of last night, my strategy has changed drastically.  Last night the Assassin and Target lists were released.  (So we have a couple days to scope each other out, seeing who our assassins and targets are, and apparently engage in more smack talk.)  I discovered that my assassin lives in Vermont, which is fine.  My target? Lives in freakin' New Zealand!  Are we kidding here?  Remember how I said you have to actually receive the hat to be considered dead?  This means that even if I knit like the wind and get the hat in the mail, it has to travel all the way to New Zealand to get to my target to officially "kill" them.  While my assassin only has to get the hat mailed from Vermont to me in California.  Are you getting the picture now? I don't have even a snowball's chance in hell.  Now, I never intended to win this thing, and I expected to go down in the first round or two - I just thought I'd at least have a decent shot at taking someone else out.  But to not even have a sporting chance really sucked all the fun out of it for me.

I get that this is supposed to be a war, not a nice friendly swap, or a knitalong.  So I've no intention of posting my dissatisfaction on the Rav group, and possibly being labeled as whiner or some other such nonsense.  But I can easily think of a couple ways this could have been done differently, that would have prevented me, and probably others, from being so ridiculously handicapped.  Limiting it to just participants in the United States would have been one way.  And since no one would really like that idea, another would be to form two separate Assassin/Target circles, one for the U.S. and one for other countries, for at least the first few rounds, and then merge them later.  And the last possible remedy would be to simply assign a few players both an assassin in another country AND  a target in another country - keeping a level playing field.

All those are just my thoughts and not really of much importance now, as the pattern will be released around 9:30am Eastern Time tomorrow, and the battle will be on.  As I mentioned before, I signed up as an enthusiastic participant.  And so as a good player, I selected a skein of a good, non-gender specific dark green Lamb's Pride, swatched it and got gauge with size 8 needles, which I have in a 16" circ and dpns for the decreases.  I was ready to go.  Now on the evening before the battle commences, I'm revising my plans a bit.  And suddenly, I'm feelin' kinda...sorta...Fuschia.

Mit idea, mitout a name

I started back here with an idea.

Which grew into this:

And finally became this:

Basically, I found a stitch pattern on something else and really liked the way a simple combination of stitches created such a nice spiraling effect. This one is done in worsted weight (my beloved L.P.) just because it's what I happened to have on hand. (Hee hee, I made a punny!) But the leftover bits of that color weren't going to be enough for both pairs so I dug out another bit of L.P. in a different color. So....we can just call that "a design element", okay?

The mate to this one is still on the needles and may have to be put on hold if I don't have time to finish it in the next few days. I'm sure I'll do another pair in the future, probably with some alpaca I've been saving for just the right project. But I'm stuck on coming up with a name for these.

I've ruled out anything with the words "spiral" or "wave" or anything vaguely ocean or weather related. There's just so many already out there!  I really liked "Coriolis", and then I realized that Cat Bordhi has a pattern out with that name.  I'm not planning to make money from the pattern, or even publish it as a freebie.  I'm just looking for something to call 'em. 

Someone studying Buddhism suggested "Koan Mitts".  According to Wikipedia, a koan is "a story, dialogue, question, or statement in the history and lore of Zen Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet may be accessible to intuition".  I'm starting to like that more than I did at first.  One of the neat things about this stitch pattern is that when you read it, there doesn't seem to be any reason why the stitches should spiral, but they do!  And once you see it happening, your intuition tells you that if you just keep knitting long enough, eventually your stitches should spiral completely around in a circle.  One of the best known examples of a koan is the question, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Seems rather appropriate for a mitt, eh? 

My other favorite is "Amstel-Trappen Mitts". In looking at them, the mitts remind me of spiraling stairs. And the best example of that in my personal history is the stairs going down from the studio apartment that I stayed in while on vacation in Amsterdam several years ago. The apartment was on Amstel Street, and faced the Amstel river. Apparently "Aeeme stelle" is old Dutch for "area abounding with water" and that appeals to me greatly! So to me, these are my Dutch staircase mitts.

So what do you think?  I'd love to get your opinion of the two front-runner candidates, along with any other suggestions.

A novel idea

Thanks to Threading Water for sharing this quiz.  It's more interesting than some of the others I've seen.

You're The Sound and the Fury!

by William Faulkner

Strong-willed but deeply confused, you are trying to come to grips with a major crisis in your life. You can see many different perspectives on the issue, but you're mostly overwhelmed with despair at what you've lost. People often have a hard time understanding you, but they have some vague sense that you must be brilliant anyway. Ultimately, you signify nothing.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Not sure how I feel about this, but it's okay with me if people think I'm brilliant.

SIP Day report

Did you remember what Sunday was? No, I'm not talking about the Superbowl fer crissakes. I could give a rat's butt about that. (Although on Friday night a friend actually asked ME if I knew where any good Superbowl parties were. I'm still wondering about that one. Maybe she was on drugs?)

No, no, no...much more important than professional sports! Sunday was:



So did you participate? I did! Although I'm afraid I have no photographic evidence to prove it. I meant to take photos during the day, but in the end, I just decided to relax and enjoy the day. A few small chores were accomplished but in the end is was all about me in my jammies, cats, and The Closer marathon. A good time was had by all.

And it really was phenomenally good timing for SIP Day. The weather was quite appropriate:



Dark gray skies, cold winds, and sheets of rain. When it looks like that, there's really no point in going out anyway. It wasn't hard for me to stay home! Oh, and one more, a little closer, for A.B. (And S.B. if he ever reads this!)



Yes, that is one great big whompin' grandaddy of a tree. Wonder how old it is?

Over the hills but not far away

This weekend I had some friends on the island who have a permitted vehicle.  Since I'm still on the waiting list (stop laughing D, it could still happen, I'm young) and my opportunities to get out into the interior of the island are limited, on Saturday when they invited me to have lunch up at the airport and cruise around afterward, I jumped at the chance.

After we had lunch, we drove to El Rancho Escondido to see a new puppy (and a very loud woodpecker), out to the Shark & Little Harbor overlook, past Ben Weston, and finally stopped off to visit Pimu. Here's some of what we saw:

And apparently yesterday while I was cruising the hills of Catalina in the back of a Dodge, this rotten little rodent:

made what I consider to be a serious strategic error.  Six more weeks of winter??? Who are we kidding? I mean, grant you taking weather recommendations from a creature with a brain the size of a grape makes about as much sense as putting your faith in one of those well-coiffed talking heads on the evening news weather broadcast.  But I've had about as much of being wet and cold and wet and sniffly (and did I mention wet?) as I really need for about the next few lifetimes and I could use a chance to dry out before mushrooms sprout in my closets (or anywhere else).

And Senor Phil?  Just so we're clear - you are not wanted around here.  We do not welcome non-native species and since your breed is not endemic to the island...well, just ask the pigs how their departure was handled.  I'm just sayin'.

B is for bolillo

It amazes me that after all the years of living in Southern California, it wasn't until I moved over to the island that I discovered these. If you are a fan of crusty bread with soft centers, then a bolillo will do it for you. Think of it as the Mexican version of a baguette, and you've got the idea.

Also, a very special Saturday Sky:



Because I wasn't in Avalon when I took it. Yippee!!!!
(I 'splain you manana.)