Melyssa-with-a-Y

Part 4: A little hiccup in our plans  On Wednesday , we slept late. We were exhausted from all of the travel and moving around and driving, so we took a lazy day. After breakfast, we did a little bit of shopping (Boots, Oxfam, and even a yarn shop) and took more photos. In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have started talking about how we couldn't wait to go home.  We had one thing on our calendar that had been scheduled since April - a tour of Castle Stalker , which was the castle out in the lake at the very end of " Monty Python and the Holy Grail ." The castle is a private residence, so they only do one tour a day, for 12 people. We had reservations for Wednesday afternoon. We decided to go see Dunstaffnage Castle on the way to Stalker, since both are near Oban.  Remember when we pissed off the faeries? Well, they were still mad.  We were finally motivated enough to leave at 2:30pm, at which point we discovered a flat tire - the front driver's ...

Annetrelac socks, in On Linie supersocke 100, Highland color. Trying to decide how much more cuff before I stop...

Paul found this in the list of papers for the Siggraph conference this year -- Simulating Knitted Cloth at the Yarn Level (Yes, that is a computer-simulated scarf!) Basically, they turned knitting into mathematical equations, and recreated it computationally. To simulate complex knitted garments, we propose an implicit-explicit integrator, with yarn inextensibility constraints imposed using efficient projections. Friction among yarns is approximated using rigid-body velocity filters, and key yarn-yarn interactions are mediated by stiff penalty forces. Our results show that this simple model predicts the key mechanical properties of different knits, as demonstrated by qualitative comparisons to observed deformations of actual samples in the laboratory, and that the simulator can scale up to substantial animations with complex dynamic motion. (and no, I don't actually know what all of that means...except that their simulation is very realistic!) ;) The paper shows real knitted swa...

Somehow this year my holiday shopping, gift giving and other to-do's got all out of whack, and I feel like I've been running behind for weeks! It didn't help matters that I got food poisoning at the office holiday party on Wednesday night (not sure what it was, but boy, it didn't like me!) and was completely out of commission on Thursday -- the very day I had intended to use as my last-minute shopping day! Argh. Number of gifts for people at the office I had *intended* to give: 12 Number of gifts I *actually* gave: 4 Holiday cards received from friends, including adorable family photos: 5 and counting Holiday cards sent: 0 -- unless you count the Chanukah e-card that I sent to about 20 people, three weeks ago. Cookies baked for Supper Club holiday party? 0 (because: sticks of butter in freezer for cookies? 0) The one area where I have managed to finish something in time for the holidays is knitting. I finished Gigi's clapotis , Rachel's booties, Kelly's sw...

... dozens more to go! I finished one of long line of knitting projects that is on the list for this holiday season. It's not a Chanuka or Xmas gift, however, it's a birthday present, for Giselle's 40th! :) Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert Yarn: Noro Aurora in rainbow (not sure the exact name), 5.5 skeins = 572.0 yards Time: 6 months (on-and-off knitting, until the last week or so) Notes: Dropping stitches on purpose was a little bit disconcerting, but it turned out beautifully, and blocking makes all the difference. Hope she likes it! Still to be done for Xmas: Scarf for Rebeka -- Brown Sheep Company Burly Spun, 100% Wool , in Moonlit Night (gorgeous blue shades) Kelly's Beachcomber sweater -- just needs sleeves sewn on! Can you say procrastination? Booties for Rachel -- tulip toes from Knitty, in two colors of my stash of leftover Dalegarn Baby Ull yarn Phew! I only have two weeks to go! Back to knitting!

That's it, I'm dead . In my previous post, I mentioned Sock Wars . The basic idea is, you become an "assassin", by knitting a pair of socks (everyone knits the same pattern) for your "target" and shipping them off, before your assassin sends you your socks. I managed to finish one sock -- took me an extra day to get the yarn, and then I messed up the sole and had to rip back a few inches, and in the meantime I was travelling all over the place -- so at least I was able to stave off my "death" for a few extra days. ;) I finally gave up and went to the mailbox when I got home from work today [after I spent an hour getting a new tire on my car] , and lo and behold, beautiful grey wool socks -- and a perfect day for them to arrive, too, it didn't even get to 60 degrees today! -- along with a cute little WIP bag (that's "work-in-progress" to you muggles) and a matching little pouch with stitch-markers! Wow! It's like Secret Sant...

I spent Monday-Wednesday of last week in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, for a conference. It's a cute, small town, and a gorgeous resort hotel . I posted my photos here . I had a few minutes to roam around on Monday afternoon before the meeting officially started, and wouldn't yo u know it, I found a yarn shop! [I broke down and bought some sock yarn, but I haven't figured out what pattern to use with it.] In the meantime, because you have to fly to Spokane to get to CdA, and you can't get to Spokane directly from Austin, I spent a lot of time in airports and on planes, which gave me ample time to work on mom's socks, thereby avoiding the dreaded "second-sock-itis". :) When I left, I only had the toe done; by the time I got home I was ready to do the heel. Unfortunately, as I got closer to the top of the sock, it occurred to me that I was running out of yarn! I have about 10 rows left... I may cut the ribbing a little short, or find a coordinating color. Next...

Did you know that I have lovely things hidden away in my fridge/freezer? No, it's not (always) science-project-style growth -- but I sometimes forget that the stuff is there. Yesterday, I found a small bag of spinach that had to be cooked post-haste. Voila! Spinach with garlic and olive oil! (mom's quick recipe) This afternoon, I took the pork loin out of the freezer, to see if I could maybe come up with something to make for dinner. Voila again! Cooking Light's Smothered Pork Chops with Thyme . (I had pork loin, not chops, but same basic idea.) Add some brown rice, and you get a well-rounded, home-cooked meal. And to drink, Timbuktu Small Block White (Chardonnay), which I got at World Markets and stuck in the fridge for just such an occassion. (I think I bought it because I liked the car on the label.) :) In the meantime, when I haven't been on the phone with a newly-discovered Nice Jewish Boy*, I've been knitting Widdershins socks. (can't knit and hold the ph...

I made chicken pot pie! Four of them, actually. Weight Watchers individual-sized chicken pot pies , in little ramekins. Here's what they looked like when they came out of the oven: Aren't they purty? And when I cut one open, it looked perfect, and tasted just as good. The topping is easy, made with Pillsbury biscuits sliced in half. Slicing the biscuits in half is probably the hardest part! I used the knife that attacked me to cut up the chicken, and at that point I remembered that cutting up chicken was precisely why I bought the new knife... the others were much too dull. It worked beautifully. AND, I cleaned it and put it away without incident. Phew. Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful Saturday... I went to HCW and picked up another skein of the white yarn so I can finish the flag socks. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't leave HCW having only bought one little skein of yarn. :) I got six skeins of 3 lovely shades (2 of each, not 6 of each!) of Berroco "Lo...

Saturday night was my monthly Cooking Light Supper Club meeting. We made Chinese food, in celebration of Chinese New Year, which is coming up on February 18th. 2007 is the Year of the Pig. I made Barbecued Chinese Chicken Lettuce Wraps . It's a Rachael Ray recipe, but it's definitely "light" enough -- the only really bad thing in it is the hoisin sauce. And you eat it wrapped in lettuce, so that's healthy, too! The biggest challenge for me was dicing up the chicken. It takes a long time to cut 3lbs of chicken into little tiny pieces! And if I'd thought of it, I would have put the red bell pepper and the water chestnuts and the scallions into the food processor instead of chopping them by hand. I think the cutting and chopping took an hour... the actual cooking only took 15 minutes. We also had potstickers and shumai, shrimp fried rice, rice meatballs (sounds weird, but they were very tasty made with ground turkey), sweet and sour short ribs, and a noodle dish....

[other than chocolate and peanut-butter] Apparently there's a Knitting movie in the works! I know you muggles (in addition to non-magic folk in the Harry Potter series, that's the term that the Yarn Harlot uses for non-knitters) out there might not be terribly excited, but it just sounds like fun! I'll admit, a movie of a bunch of women sitting around knitting might not be that fantastic, but I'm sure the story line has more to it than that. And if Julia Roberts likes the idea, then it may turn into a pretty good movie. :) I might have to get the book , although the reviews aren't too stellar. Here's hoping Hollywood can do something to improve it!

Today I finished a third American Flag sock (I had more yarn, whate else was I going to do with it?) and thought I should take a picture. I decided to make the second pair with white toe and heel, instead of red. Looks just as nice, although I'm still having trouble making the stripes on the seam side match up. I found a new way to make a heel, so I might try that on the second (fourth) sock. Last week at the Knitting Meetup, I worked on another square of the modular scarf, so I thought I'd show you what that looks like, too. I love the pattern, but I'm not sure I love it made with this yarn. The ladies at the Meetup were really impressed, and were very interested in the book. (and I taught someone to crochet!) I'd take a pic of Rebeka's poncho, but it'd just look like a purple-orange-green blob. I'll take a picture of her wearing it, I'm sure that will look much better. :)

(Thanks to Dani , who wanted to know what " Yo la tejo " meant.) First, I assumed (incorrectly) that the infinitive was tejar - it's not. It's tejer . From context, I guessed that the word tejer is Spanish for knit... then I went to check. I usually use Babelfish to help with my translations, but over there, knitting translates as "hacer punto" - literally, to make points. I found another dictionary that lists tejer. I might have to use that site more often, as Babelfish tends to foul things up more often than not. [In case you're wondering, "tejar" means to tile, as in putting down the bathroom floor.] Speaking of Babelfish, here's a site with a fun script called Multibabel: you enter a sentence in English, and it translates in and out of five different languages, so the end result is totally skewed. Spanish and knitting are two of the biggest things in my life, but this is the first time I have ever put the two together (for good...

One American Flag Sock finished! I joined the blue yarn when I was on the plane between Houston and Austin, and finished the "stars" and the ribbing when I got home, and during the day on Saturday. It looks so cool!! Of course I immediately cast on with the red for the second sock! Here's what the finished sock looks like, and next to it, the actual pattern. But truthfully, the only part of this pattern that I really followed was the grid for the stars. I knit toe-up rather than leg-down, and used "magic loop" vs. double-pointed needles (DPNs). but I don't think my version looks bad at all! Now if only I could figure out how to properly do the heel turn... mine always comes out with holes on the corners. ugh. Tomorrow morning I'm off to LA/SD for Thanksgiving. MZ is getting me a ticket to the Getty Villa, and we might go see the 007 movie on Monday night. I'm interested to see how Daniel Craig does as Bond. I've heard good things so far. Als...

Yesterday, in addition to doing laundry, making banana-oatmeal-apple-cinnamon-bread, and going to the gym for my favorite class, I cut open my mini-pumpkin and took out the innards. I wanted to do a jack-o-lantern, but not a huge mega pumpkin... so I chose a small one. I also borrowed a recipe from 101cookbooks.com and toasted the pumkin seeds. (hmm... I probably would have felt better today if I hadn't eaten ALL of them in one sitting.) Tonight, when I got home, I drew a fun face on the pumpkin and cut it out. It turned out great! (The yellow clip isn't actually in the pumpkin's ear, it just looks that way) :) I also worked a little more on my very first sock. This is a picture of the first attempt ... after this, I switched to a smaller needle and cast on fewer stitches, and have now knit almost 4" of the first sock. It's great! I'm not used to having to work for so long to get only 1" of stockinette ... smaller needles, more knitting! I am also beginnin...

Last night a bunch of us went to the Alamo Drafthouse to see Animal House on the big screen - with an intro/Q&A Session with Chris Miller. He was one of the original writers of the screenplay, and has a new book out . It sounds like a lot of the stuff in the movie is a) real, and b) minimal compared to the full story of what actually happened! Before the film he talked about a guy in the fraternity (basically, the Bluto character) who "wore" a carved jack-o-lantern around his middle (and nothing else!) to go trick or treating around town. Basically, the jack-o-lantern's nose was the guy's ... well, you can guess. :) I don't think I'd ever seen the movie on the big screen before... I was only 5 when it came out, after all. It was fun to watch. The Drafthouse here is similar to the one in Arlington - but the food is much better! Instead of comfy chairs at round tables, it's rows of movie seats alternated with narrow tables. They have great programs and e...