24 posts from January 2008

Last night for dinner, I made a cake and soup, both with ingredients that needed to be peeled and cut.  I've been a little leary about fishing around in the drawer for the peller since I cut myself on it one day.  I peeled and cut an apple into small pieces, made a carrot into long shreds for the cake, and prepared a bunch of broccoli florets and more carrots, and minced some cloves of garlic for the soup.  All a-ok, I took care to keep my fingers out of the way as I do every time I prep dinner. 

So what do I cut myself on? Taking the butter out of the box it came in, I got a nice deep paper cut!  Wow, that's talented, isn't it?!  :P

Oh how I wish the Macworld expo had come out with a new version of the Mac Mini or whatever will replace it, or made some sort of a decision on it.  I really hate to buy the current version and then have something better come along.

iBank 3 - IGG Software, LLC

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For the last 6 months at least, I've been having problems with my current Mac Mini.  This is the second one I've had, I had the first generation in April 2005, and then whatever the newer one in April 2006 because it was more powerful and E inherited the original.  So I'm ready for one with more power, and I really want Leopard and iLife 08 (for the new iPhoto mainly) and I'm ready to try and get a new banking software (eying the linked iBank3), as well as the Office suite which is now more affordable for home use.

For the last month or two, I'm having major problems.  KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE and the like.  We swapped out the ram and after a few tries for which slot they were plugged into, we stopped some of the major crashes.  But now Safari and as of today, NetNewsWire no longer will load at all.

The next step is to wipe everything out and reinstall in case the OS is screwed up somehow, but I'm not sure if that will fix it or not.

I'm just ready for a new mac, and the iMac isn't a great option because I already have a nice monitor (Viewsonic 19").  The Mac Pro is just too much (money AND power) for my needs.  And while a laptop might be nice, it's more money and I don't need the portability most of the time.  I'm definitely planning to stick with a mac rather than rebuilding a PC, that's for sure.  I have a hard time believing that Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini without something else that's entry level and small, but I guess they could just keep the same model of the Mac Mini available with no real upgrades for a long time.

So for now, I'm going to be backing everything up a lot and making lists of programs I must reinstall after clearing things out.  When I migrated from Mac Mini #1 (dubbed 'cinderella' - my ipod is 'tinkerbell'), I used the migration wizard, so I haven't ever had to reinstall stuff.  (Mac Mini #2 is 'tifa', guess what game I'd just played when I got her?!)

What fun....!

We tried new mexican and sat under an umbrella. It needed more light and the food was just eh. But we had a coupon! :)

Umbrella seating

Usually my food gets its pic taken here, but today i was looking at the pretty wall. We love this place and feel so bad that the last 3 visits we've been the only customers.

Tossed art

The think geek monkey is helping me knit by climbing into my bag. :)

Bag monkey

Even though it's the end of January, it's never too late to write up my knitting recap from the holidays, right? :)

For Christmas, I planned a variety of knitting projects to go with my gifts.  Since this was something I was going to enjoy, not feel pressure with, I kept thinking of other ideas along the way of things I could gift instead of my knitting if I didn't get it done.  But actually, I ended up making additional knitted gifts because I got done *faster* with most things that I thought.

clapotis modeling 2

Happy Clapotis Scarf.  For a gift for my mother-in-law, I wanted something fairly light because she's in CA, and so a regular warm scarf was not going to be great.  I didn't think I had the time to do a full clapotis wrap, but I found a scarf sized version that looked more usable.  And then for the yarn, I did some research (Knitty Boards, membership required to view) because I wasn't as excited about the chunky look from the scarf pattern, and the Lion and Lamb that the wrap had was nice but not from a yarn store I normally shop at.  I found that Knit Picks had some great colors of their Shimmer, and I was sold, it had beautiful color options and was baby alpaca and silk which seemed like it would be light.  Then I found someone on Ravelry (CaseyK's clapotis) who had used the same yarn and colorway triple stranded, and that looked like a really nice weight, so I went with that.

Actually knitting this was a joy.  I had so much fun figuring out the stitches and anticipating when the next drop happened.  It curled up a bit while knitting, but then blocking it made all the difference in the world, the drop ladders turned out all straight and perfect and much more beautiful than I thought.  I would seriously consider making myself a full Clapotis wrap if I could think of somewhere to wear it.

socks anastasia blocking

Stripey Anastasia Socks.  For my mom.  I thought she might be the only person who would appreciate socks, and plus with our drawing names, I wasn't sure who I would get to have enough time for this project.  I knew that she had slightly smaller feet than me (and in hind sight, I probably still should have made them a little less long), and so that helped for knowing what measurement to use.

I found the yarn before picking a pattern.  When I saw the Felici yarn from Knit Picks when they introduce it, I knew the Firefighter colorway was totally her.  So then I just had to find a pattern that would work okay with this yarn and be a little more interesting than just straight stockingette.  The Anastasia pattern had a spiral that was reversed on the 2nd sock, and that looked like fun to knit (it was). 

I started these when I first got the yarn, but then did them slowly alongside all the other gifts, so it was the last thing finished of my gifts.  They blocked up really nicely, although my k2tog/yo and ssk/yo aren't exactly the same size, so the holes on the 2nd sock are slightly bigger, and that was a little sad.  It's certainly not as noticeable when the socks are on.

armwarmer on

Chocolatty Armwarmers and Scarf.  For Lisa, who works in the family business in an office/warehouse that is cold.  I figured she could use these armwarmers when driving and typing in the cold.  I saw someone on Ravelry (lixolux) a while back that had armwarmers with plaits (braids) instead of the fancy flowery cable from the pattern, and I really liked that.  My Stitchionary comes in handy for that, and I'd used the plaited cable on an afghan square already, so I knew I could do it. And I was more comfortable this time around with doing cabling without a cable needle, which came in handy!

And then instead of looking for the suggested Noro online, I found some people making things out of the new Debbie Mumm yarn, which I could get at Jo-Ann's w/o stressing about finding a real yarn store.  This yarn was not great to knit with, but the finished product was pretty good.  The repeats in colors weren't the same anywhere in the 2nd skein so I had to do a lot of work to make them look the same. 

These were such a fast knit that as I got to the end of my holiday knitting, I decided to make a really skinny scarf to go with them.  I did it in the same rib as the armwarmers, and every once in a while, I put the plait cable in.  I made it nice and long and I enjoyed trying it on for photos :)

ballet warmers close

I love the construction of these.  I've finally gotten very comfortable with short rows, and so this was easy.  I made the ties a little longer, but I still wish I'd gone further, they didn't wrap around twice like ballet slippers very easily.  The stretchy yarn was fun to work with, and they really did strech well.  Of course, this made them look little in the package!  I think I could have made them a little bigger and had them work for longer, but I made the kids size already, so I was scared I was overthinking it.

Then when I was shopping for the Cascade Fixation, I thought I'd also get some yarn and make some stretchy legwarmers to go with.  I used the Fixation held with a variety of other worsted weight yarn (Wool-Ease, the Swish Superwash, and some Knit Picks Twist I picked up on clearance).  They didn't quite come out as strechy as I'd hoped, and it took me a little longer due to wanting to weave in ends as I went but not detatch yarn.  I should have done them on dpns, but I was trying to get a feel for using circular needles on small diameters, so this also took me a lot more adjusting than I wanted.  Overall, I wish I'd made them a little bigger and even maybe just with the fixation instead of stripes.

mittens together

Also, I found patterns with some sort of neat stitch patterns on them, and I liked those, but I was worried about getting his little fingers caught.  So I came up with a slip stitch pattern that looked like it was fair isle instead.  This made for a nice warm and pretty mitten.  I had a hard time with getting the placement of the thumb right and the length of the mitten to actually look like the length of his hand.  It took quite a few tries to get it right, but I really like how it turned out in the end.  The thumb was stripey to keep the bulk of the fabric down, and that looked super cute.

The thing I was most disappointed with was my i-cord.  I still don't feel like my i-cords are very even, and I tried to jazz this one up with alternating the colors, which made for ends to weave in and potentially look funny after some wears.

But the best thing was Leonard wearing the gloves around his neck from the i-cord on Christmas Eve.  Even if he doesn't wear them much, that picture in my head was worth it!

Ravelry project page.

And that's the story of my holiday knitting.  I really enjoyed the projects I did, and certainly am happy I did it all! :)

It's cold outside and i'm getting a ride from a cute boy soon. Knitting went good, i'm inventing something based on a pattern and i need to rip again but it's gonna be cool. :)

After knit me

1 comment

Not really in germany, but at Rhinelander/Gustuv's in Portland. :)

Germany