Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The table:
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The podcast:
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The sweater:
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The receipt:
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Why are these elements important? Because if I flip this over I reveal...

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Yes, my friends, this is what I was sunning on, listening to, knitting, and eating at 2:21 PDT on this 5th day of April in the year 2006 when I figured out what my dissertation is going to be about. Those are the scribblings of an actual hypothesis, research plan, and... dare I say it? A Path To Graduation. It is indeed a sunny day.

Since I know this is what you really care about, the sweater is The Perfect Sweater I'm designing the shawl collar for. ("Perfect" sweater indeed! The clarity of mind that came from relaxing knitting this garment may have been the source of my inspiration. I shall cherish it forever. (Unless I rip it out to do a different collar or size or because that's what I do.)) I'm knitting it from the top down in an effort to get to the collar bit in a more timely manner. I had just joined the fronts when I had to pause to capture my dissertation seed and the blog about my triumph. I think I should get a good chunk of the collar done tonight at Seattle Stitch 'n Bitch (that's right, Sew Fast So Easy. Bite me.) I'm planning on picking up stitches and working in ribbing, with some short rows to make the back higher.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Now all I want to do is spin. That, and buy my very own wheel. I spent most of yesterday at a Widbey Island spinning event with Jessica. We schlepped all our stuff an hour and a half north to listen to Judith Mackenzie, spin, and shop. Even though I'm still in a great deal of pain, it was totally worth it. There were so many beautiful wheels fun and excited people there we filled the Oak Harbor gymnasium/auditorium/lunchroom (ah, small town high schools). I sadly did not win any of the door prizes, but I did manage to increase my fiber stash a bit. My love affair with alpaca continues and I found roving from an alpaca named Sweetie in a lovely charcoal that I think is the softest I've felt so I grabbed a good 8oz. I'm not sure why, but it never occurred to me that roving could be superwash just like yarn, and there was a very soft superwash merino tencel so I picked up 3.5 oz to give it a try. I've never spun anything that didn't come from an animal, so I also bought 3.5 oz bamboo to play with (which is also... very soft. I need a thesaurus. Or another criteria to pick fiber). There was also a great deal of free fleece lying about at the end but I'm not set up for, nor particularly interested in, washing my own and for a while the feeding frenzy was quite intense so I left that alone.

Hopefully I've been able to fake it alright, but I'm having a heck of a time stringing cohertent sentances together. I think I'm going to take more drugs and pop back in bed.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

In honor of Flash Your Stash Day (which it still barely is in this time zone), I thought I would share a major selling point of my apartment: built-in yarn storage
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So you see, my stash is totally under control. Of course when I turned around, I saw this
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And then I went to my desk
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And my chair swivels
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And there's a bunch of yarn in MS. And maybe a few skeins in MN...