adding thread to your bobbin

hey all, perhaps this is useful. loading a bobbin is pretty universal, though your machine might be sort of different than mine, the concepts are the same.

first, put your machine in neutral- on my little engine that could, i have to pull the whole purple wheel out away from the casing.

then un thread your machine so the spool is just sitting on the holder. then, find the turning point. on my machine it's the thing that looks like a screw just to the left of the tension lever. pull the thread around that, and then back toward the spool.


next, you take the thread, and thread it into the bobbin from the inside out, pull enough through so there's a bit to hold on to.


then you put the bobbin on the holder (you might need to slide the holder to one side or the other), and use the food pedal to spin it. you need to hold on to the little bit you threaded through, so it will be tight enough, and you don't want to go too fast, because it might tangle or go all wonky.

test

to see about the feedback buttons. There are buttons you can click on all the ravelry posts. blogger has incorporated them too. there are lots of neat features here on blogger. some day i'll go through them and have a look at them all. then you'll be bombarded with on-line fripperies!

a return to football!

yay! you must have been wondering where have all my silly sports gone? well, i've actually just got back on a team. last night was our first game. we smashed them. it was something line 15 or so to just two.

i think dave and dan had the most- but i lost track. next up was probably mick or perhaps jon, i only had one. but that's ok! it was very nice to get back on the field. i haven't played for many weeks, so i am slightly out of shape (100% out of shape) but that's ok, i let the young studs do all the hard work, and i celebrate the win. Just kidding!

a change of plans

for the buttony sweater! (hey, i'm nothing if not indecisive!)

So i did a bit of a swatch with bobbles over the weekend. Blech! they are a drag to knit. i'll try again when the yarn arrives, but i'm leaning toward no-go. then i considered a cable collar, and cables around the hem, and then more narrow cables along the sleeves. one something like leabhran's Coronet Hat.

but then i learned that cables often curl in, side to side- the crossover of the cable causes the pull. so that's not so appealing either.

so then i thought, perhaps a scallop edge might look neat. This one is
KnitsByRachel's Scallops Pattern Dishcloth (it's about half way down)

I'll have to try them both out.I'm sure i'll go with the scallop edge, or the bobble, as planned, since the cable is WAY more work. not the cabling itself, that's actually pretty easy, once you get your legs under you, but cables run vertically; and collars, hems, and sleeve edges run horizontally, so you have to knit the cables off line, then graft them on to the sweater. blech!

I expect the yarn to arrive today or tomorrow (hurry, kind postman!) so i'll have to give some ideas a try then. More news when it happens!

Actually, while looking for the owners of the pics, i found Coronet Cuffs.


Methinks they look pretty neat, I'm leaning a bit toward that pattern for the colalr and cuffs!

arrrgh! the suspense is killing me!

so yesterday i placed an order with my favorite online yarn shop thus far knitpicks. i got Wool of the Andes Kettle-Dyed



in the colorway soot.




but now the suspense is killing me! i simply cannot wait for the package to arrive! arrrrgh! i'm going to make myself another buttony sweater. I learned some valuable lessons from the last one so this one will be more successful i think.

initially i was going to post a long dissertation about my intended modifications to the buttony sweater. Dear readers fear not. I came to my senses before doing so, lest your eyes glaze right over.

Instead, have a look at this person's great posting Not for the first time i'm embarrassed by my lacking language skills. She did a really great job on hers, and her photos look soooo good. I hope mine turns out half as nice.

so the order is placed, i just need the string. Hurry kind postman, Please don't delay! i need to make that sweater, and i simply can't wait a day!

update:
Your Knit Picks order shipped 11/14/2008! Your order number is 80894.

Items Shipped
Qty Item # Item Description Price
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 24289 Soot Kettle WotA @ $3.49 = $17.45

Hee. This makes me giggle

Candids are tricky things.


you can see that this sweater is a tiny bit too roomy. That's ok; according to my sisters, too roomy is way better than too tight.


Snaps of children's clothing on hangers is nice and all, but snaps of the children are better! i'm pleased, now i get to have Roo on my blog too!

Mini Minnesota Vikings Fan

my friend molly will have received the package by now so i think i'm ok to post this. so they like their vikings in minnesota, i like that, we like our patriots here in new England, it's like we're all kinfolk. Now, the grape-flavoured vest took far less yarn than i expected. But what to do with the rest? Allow it sit around, taking up space, mocking me for my poor planning and foolish, wasteful spending? No silly! Make it into something!



As a matter of fact, i also had some yellow leftover from kristen's sweater too. It's perfect Vikings yellow! How utterly serendipitous! So. I used the same pattern as kristen's. i'm a bit nervous, because i think the one for Riley Roo is a bit too large. but it's the 2-3 year size, and i followed the destructions exactly! Well, mostly i followed them exactly. i did the sweater top down, on one needle, rather than doing as pieces and seaming. it's really easy to do it that way. send a message if you need advice. I'd like to reemphasize my complete love of the Peace Baby!Pattern
It's well worth the investment of a donation to the worthy cause, and the pattern is really useful.



Perhaps Molly will be able to email a snappy snap of the sweater in action, dear readers, so you won't be stuck with just an ugly maroon hanger.

separating good carbs from...

better ones!

There is something sublime about tasty baked goods. like spaghetti and meatballs, they are comfort food, at it's most effective.

I love brownies, but i'm moderately particular about their texture. i like them to be dense and fudgey, but i also like them to have a bit of chewiness to them too.

so on sunday i had this inexplicable urge to make chocolaty brownies. I tried to talk myself out of it, but succeeded only in making the craving worse. I searched my cupboards for brownie mix. even an ancient box. nope, nada. Then i remembered an old every day food magazine dedicated to brownies. tada! but alas, it called for 8 oz of chips, and i only had about 4 (strangely, i did have cocoa in the house). no probs, i found a jar of nutella hazelnut spread tada!

so they came out fantastic! my oven runs a bit hot, so next time i'll have to cut back the temp, but these came out so nicely. it's 100% as easy as making them with a box. no more brownie box for me. the only added step is melting the butter and chocolate together.

yummy!

Halloween is different this year....

Last year we were here:


this year we are home, and it's nice but... I would like to be a dubliner. Or perhaps a dublin suburbanite. I dunno if you'lll be able to see the pics very well, i should have done a more thorough selection, but i don't to take any more out. As it is, there are tones of great things i've left out. Like Marianne and Dad completing the race, and the great cappuccino at the mall, whilst i was so jetlagged i almost tipped right over.


We had a fantastic trip, anyone who is worried about travelling with people should travel with marianne- she's swell. Travel with me Mam and Dad too- they're swell, even though on a couple of occasions i did my best churlish teenager routine, they didn't tell me off, not once!



I'm saving to go again, just you wait and see. the next trip will have a car i think. hooo hoo hoo! you'll know it's us by the white-knuckled co-pilot!

do you know what today is?

I'll tell you. Today is one week for the US General Elections. The elections are important, it is your responsibility to vote- just as your right to free speech is a right, your right to vote is equally important. With great power comes great responsibility, no? You've got this great power- choosing the next president. you've got to fulfill your responsibility and make your voice heard.

Whether you're conservative or liberal, i think you'll have to admit that the past eight years have simply not worked well. Our budget is in ruin. Our international reputation is laughable. Our employment situation is frightening. Just about every single area of the health and future of our country and society is on the brink of collapse. Conservative or liberal, I don't think i'm saying anything profound when i say the last eight years have been a failure.

I'll not pretend i'm still on the fence, you already know that. I'm for Obama, and i think you should be too. His plans for the tumultuous economy, his goals for foreign relations, and his expectations for health care are more feasible. The purpose of this post is not to get you to vote for obama, it's to get you to vote at all (well, it's also to get you to vote for obama)

Should you still be on the fence, here are some handy sites:
Obama Official
McCain official
Bear in mind, these are the campaign sites, and should be a taken with a grain of salt.

there are an abundance of great news sites available, but the ones i like to use are these:
bbc's coverage
FactCheck
newsweek
My friend Ernest says the economist is a good site as well. I've not used it very often, but he wouldn't recommend trash.

so the point of this is this: Voting is so empowering! Take advantage of it. do a bit of research, you'll find yourself becoming more aware of your world, and what you can do to change it. Google has a fantastic tool for finding where you go to vote, Find it here

I'll climb down now, from my stump. But before i go, i'll just quote Bob Schieffer (and his mom),
go out there and vote, it will make you feel big and strong

grape flavoured vest

So. I really want to make a vest for johnny. i know, it's a bit nerdy- a vest, but that's ok. i had a rowan pattern, but it was so hard- all sorts of “knit as for back until you get to here…, then proceed as follows” blah blah blah. Blech. So there is one in debbie bliss’s essential knits for kits, i’ve got that on order from the library, but i’m impatient, what can i say. so i settled on a lion brand pattern.

I went with only a single cable, on the right front. I like asymmetry in my sweaters. I also worked this on a single circular needle, rather than two straights. when i made the peace baby, i decided that i just don’t groove on seaming, and if i can avoid it, i shall.



Now, some mods to the pattern itself. the sizes don’t go quite high enough, so i sort of guessed on the number of additional stitches to cast on to fit a 6 year old. Too big is ok, he can wear it a bit longer. i just don’t want it to be too small.

i suppose it was a moderately boring project, as a mostly stocking stitch sweater will be. Knitpicks yarn is great to work with. It’s very predictable and dependable. i really like it.

Argh! i finished a good bulk of this sweater, and the dumb thing wouldn’t fit over his noggin! arrrgh! No Problem. I undid one shoulder, and put buttons on it to so it can be opened up.

and then, guess what i learned! over a lunch break, i learned how to properly pick up stitches. My other attempts have been unhappy at best. but this time, like a great muse descended upon John Milton for Paradise Lost, so to did the knowledge for picking up stitches.



I finished this sweater in about a week. not too bad. i finished it last night before soccer. (incidentally, if you need a girl to play indoors, send a message) My newly acquired skill of picking up stitches helped me immensely. i’m going to send it out UPS to the recipient today.

alrighty then.

it's a long time since i've posted a snarky sports post, for a number of reasons. i'm trying to move away from the jerky fan syndrome. if last football season taught me anything, it's how to win and lose sportsmanly. The Uefa soccer last summer, and the olympics a few weeks ago have helped me evolve into a sports fan, more than a team fan (though i do still wish every yankee would trip in the batters box, and make errors in the field).

All that being said, For the love of god and all that is holy! would you please pinch hit for Jason Varitek! He is a Shitty Hitter! He was 1 for 17 in the first six games of the series! 1 for 17! Why would you ever use the three run homer the other night as an indication that he's got a hot bat? ARRRRGH! pinch hit for him for crissakes! who cares that kevin cash or that other guy will have to catch in the ninth? Papelbon is a top tier closer. If Paps can't figure out what to do without varitek calling his pitches, we've got additional problems.

The sox have painted themselves into a corner- we have a glaring deficiency in that position. Plus, since they have been so reluctant to spell varitek, none of our other catchers have had good opportunity to learn how to call the game the way he does. so we've doubly hurt ourselves. What will happen when Varitek's knees do finally call quits?

I know, i'm on a lonely island, everyone and their grandmother loves jason varitek, and what i'm saying is tantamount to heresy, but sweet georgia brown, he is a terrible hitter. fine, he calls a good game, and he keeps the infield together. Fine, he has good rapport with his pitchers. Fine Fine Fine. But he is almost a guaranteed out at the plate. He looked like a rusty gate in that AB in the 8th last night. How is that helpful? how is that at all helpful when the game is 100% on the line, and we need a hit?

peace, paby!

I was apprehensive right from the start. Sunshine is much more egg yolk than i expected, and allspice is much more flat brown than i expected.

I’m wasn't at all sure the resulting sweater will be very nice. It certainly wouldn’t be very babyish. But i figured, i would have to continue on, with an amount of trepidation.

I knitted during the dodgers/phillies, and then the two sox/rays weekend games. Then i had to put it all on hold to help cover the pool, so not too much knitting was done. but i did get started on the embroidery, for which i did decide to go with embroidery floss.

Now, the yellow and brown are pretty…. well not very pretty. The yellow isn’t my favorite, and the brown isn’t either. So i really needed the embroidery to pull it all together. Embroidery isn’t really my strongest skill, but i do rather like the way it came out. I really do like the way the brown is tied in with the yellow now. I’m actually rather pleased with it.

I had a pretty hard time with the neckline. my skills don’t yet extend all the way to sewing icord as i go along. Plus, i’ve only got metal dpns; i knit very loosely on metal needles, so the icord was sloppy and taking a long time. So, i tried crochet around the edge. no go. looked terribly sloppy. So in the end i simply picked up the stitches all the way around and knit 2 rows then bound off. The button loop is half double crochet.

So, my thoughts: this is a great sweater, and a great pattern. it could become a go-to pattern for me. I would probably rework the instructions to be a top down, done in the round. Like many other people, i’m not crazy about seaming. i love the yarn, it’s very predictable and pleasant to work with. All in all, i think the project is a success.

Fall birthdays snaps

my friend molly is great at posting super snappy-snaps and video of family functions. I'm working at it, but i'm not really a great photo hound, so sometimes my efforts fall a bit short of the endzone. My latest go was confounded because i had the camera set for night time snapshot. Well, Pooey.

but that's ok, i did manage to get a good one of the littlest googie with first birthday party muffin, appropriately mooshed into grossness.


You see, initially we planned to go apple picking to get cider doughnuts, peanut-caramel apples and a few for pies. Alas, the entire town of Stow had the same plan! Parking was a snarl, and I do not exaggerate when i say everyone and their grandmother were at the Honey Pot Hill Orchard. It also was terribly muddy.

So we decided to move to plan B. Plan B meant Nana Mary got apples from ferjulians, Other Nana went to get donuts from HoneyDew, i stopped for peanuts and caramel ice cream topper, and we all went to heidi's house.

It was fabulous B-Day party for the fall birthdays of the family. YAY!

snappy snaps

so, here are some more snappy snaps from my home town. The Assabet river is a meandery river, it's not terribly attractive, and it's got snapping turtles in there. But every so often, it puts on it's nice outfit and looks quite photogenic. The only thing missing from the snaps are the swans who live in the little islands down in the fog there.

On The Economy

now, I know, i'm not terribly smart. Especially in terms of money. I don't really understand what goes on on wall street or day to day at a mortgage bank. I don't really now exactly what they are all talking about.

But one thing i do know, if you don't have the cash, you can't afford it. If you only make $2000 a month take home capital, you can't afford an $1800 mortgage. So here's me; subscribing to a pretty sound economic policy, While all of the rest of the country, the money boffins, and the presidential administration en masse, were involved in this horrible and delusional vortex of business and even life on spec.

i'm really sorry, but I'm moderately hacked off that the people whom i entrusted to run the country and its finances didn't see this coming. I've been living within my means since i moved out on my own four years ago. Why the fuck hasn't everyone else? could it be because the ringleader of the current administration is short sighted?
It's human nature to for people take the lead of those in charge; and it's little wonder we became a nation of spenders and squander.

Over the years i've made a practice of saving and saving for major purchases. I've become more smart and logical about how and when i spend my money. I make informed decisions, and i do not by an Audi if i can only afford a VW. But the rest of the country seems to have been transfixed by The Precious.

People like myself, and joe schmoe iowa corn farmer have a lot to be hacked about. We are paying for people who had unrealistic financial ambitions. While it's immensely too bad they've lost their shirt, it's an absolute travesty that i should have to lose mine as well. I'm not above helping people, but i do have to express my complete and whole dissatisfaction with those who initiated, exacerbated, and are right now perpetuating the problem.

I'm not at all sure about this buyout program, and truthfully, i would like a debate to take place to help explain it to me. For the past six years we've had a smoke and mirror economy, and it's time for some transparency. Now is not the time to postpone a debate senator McCain, now is the time to lay your cards on the table. Show me what you've got, because if you think for one minute that I'm going to vote for you simply because you talk about change you are wrong. I want to know what you plan to do- break it down for me, simple economics style.

a gift for the happy couple

so, now that Ernest and Sarah have been married, i feel i can post the snappy snaps of the gift i made for them without letting the cat out of the bag. The wedding was on saturday, and i don't mind saying, it was fantastic. Easily one of the most fabulous, sweet, heartfelt, genuine, happy and fun weddings i've attended.

initially i wanted to do reusable fabric grocery bags, but mom gave it the thumbs down. oh dear. but i don't like to give cash for gifts. To me a gift is a gift, i like it when some thought is invested, both when i'm the recipient, and especially when i'm the giver. I like the gifts i give to have sentimental meaning, yet are more useful than decorative.

so, i settled on a quilt.


I do hope they don't mind the gift is handmade (some people do you know). I went with blue and white, because i thought they were the colors of the wedding, but as it turns out, the wedding was way more fabulously colorful than that; i could have used any color pallet and it would have been appropriate. but that's OK.

I personalized it for them, and put the date of the big event on there too.

Congratulations, Sarah and Ernest!

seven years

so. it was a morning just exactly like this- chilly for the am commute, but promising to be a bright, warm and crisp, beautiful early fall day.

around nine or so i lost my internet. I remember being aggravated. then i remember martha telling me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. I remember calling my mom to tell her to turn on the news. I remember not getting a single shred of work done that day, and feeling on the verge of puking.

I remember that in a blink of an eye, life was different. The world was different. No-one is safe from a sucker punch. A girl can't insulate herself from the sting of the cute by turning her down. A mom can't really prevent her son from making poor decisions. A husband can't really prevent his beloved from dying. But one thing we all sort of forget is that we also can't avoid a sucker punch. As humans, we try to keep our wits, and make contingency plans, and make an effort to keep everything well thought out, so plays from behind are our only weak spot. A play from behind ultimately changed the entire world.

New york is different, The travel industry is different, the entire world is different. That girl and the boy who turned her down; the son and his mom who worries for him; the husband, his beloved. But mostly the families; They are all different. We are all different.

I am.

I don't know that there is anything to be gained from September 11. I like to think at the very least we could see first hand how racism and hatred are catastrophic; the most vitriolic and damaging of all personal values. But I don't know.

Yes i do.
I learned it.

Hatred has no place for me. I will not foster it, and i will not tolerate it with those i hang around with. I sincerely hope others have banished hatred from their being, but i can't be responsible for that. I can lead by example; and i'm going to do so, I started seven years ago, and it's my responsibility and honor to carry on doing so.

Dear unfortunate Tom Brady

this is a nice snappy snap, no? One to put on the fridgerator at their mom's houses.



too bad the world of Quarterbacks came crashing down all around us in the form of Kansas City Chiefs. Uh Oh. This could be very bad indeed. Even if it's not a surgery situation, it's a still pretty bad scene.

which words?

so i found this great thingy wordle.net I found the link to it at the cotton and cloud blog, from the directions provided at the best handbag site online.

So which words do i use most often, well, i'm pleased to report they aren't curses, and they aren't really affiliated with complaining. that makes me smile, because i am sometimes concerned that i spend too much time whingeing.

so with out further blather... here's my wordle!