Wednesday, May 22, 2013

I love London…

THE HIPSTERS HAVE THE CREDITS

I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at a hipster post…

And they wonder why we don’t like them.

——

It’s a “Hunger Games” morning over here. Apparently, I need a reminder that I can survive being unemployed and bored out of my mind. And alone. We can’t forget alone.

I’m not a social person, but I do miss being surrounded by people. Even people I don’t like very much. That makes this even harder.

But I’ve settled into a pattern of sorts: drop Guinness off at day care, watch Doctor Who when I get back, then switch to Supernatural if the reruns are good or watch a movie (preferably an absolutely terrible horror flick on Netflix), and then it’s Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, and then back to Netflix. If I’m somewhere else in the house, I can normally find some trainwreck TV (I’m partial to the judge shows: Alex, Judy, People’s Court.)

Dog, that makes me sound pathetic, but since I mostly just listen to them, it makes me feel a little less lonely.

I did have some much needed social interaction with people who aren’t my trainer last night when I finally got back to my knitting group.

My knitting group! It’s been so long - it was awesome to see the majority of the old crew. There’s not a lot of newbies, and some women have been in the group for almost 20 years. It was nice. I got a lot done on the Wallaby and decided I’m going to finish my red socks and probably work on a Wallaby for myself when the socks get boring, but without the pocket and hood. I haven’t decided about the hood since I’m not there yet, but the pouch isn’t really my sort of thing.

If I’m going to be taking the trail into Boston, I’ll have plenty of time to knit the socks - they travel well. It’s about 70-80 minutes to Boston by train. It would take me that long to drive and probably three times as long to find a parking space around Downtown Crossing.

But back to the Wallaby: I know. I know. I just vented about how shitty the pattern was. Now that I’ve done one, though, it will be much easier. It will just make much longer since I’m not a child’s size 6. I’m afraid to even look at the pattern right now to see just how many stitches I would need to cast on. Right now, I’m working with 188 and that feels like it’s taking forever.

——

My phone interview went really well last night and they told me I’d hear back in one or two weeks. In the meantime, I passed up a part time, temporary bookkeeping job. I had to commit to eight weeks and since I’m starting to get some calls, I don’t want to commit to two months of temp work. Even though I could have started today.

As much as I don’t like the idea of commuting into Boston, the money’s better and this job would be worth it.

Wish me luck. I think I’m going to need it!

Monday, May 20, 2013

Bored. Kinda.

I really do love how Sherlock’s pronunciation of John’s name has become wildly accepted. It pops up everywhere in the fandom. Even my fan fiction.

——

I’ve been sticking to trying to apply for 5-ish jobs a day, at a minimum, and the majority of those cannot be through recruiters. For every recruiter I apply to, I have two find two more positions. I’m aiming high and hoping for the middle. I guess it could be worse… Maybe some of these companies will see my resume and be all “OOOH! SHE’S PROBABLY CHEAP! LET’S BRING HER IN.”

It’s a nice fantasy. Right?

——

I’m currently taking advantage of being (temporarily?) less depressed than I have been by working on craft projects. I have some thank you cards I’m making as part of a wedding gift and I’m working on my Wonderful Wallaby. The cards are easy. The sweater? Not so much. I vented on Facebook that the company that wrote the pattern really sucks. The pattern really does suck, not because it’s hard to knit (it’s actually pretty enjoyable and I can see why they become pretty addictive), but because it’s written in a conversational fashion.

Instead of saying, “knit for a thousand rounds,” it says “So we went to the lake and had a wonderful summer. The kids love to swim and oh, by the way, go ahead and knit for a few rounds. We think it would look awesome if you made it really long… a thousand rounds should do.” OK. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

Now imagine trying to join sleeves to a sweater body when the pattern is written so conversationally. Lots of Google.  Print outs of drawings. Falling down the rabbit hole that is Ravelry… to finally have that blinding flash of the obvious and attaching those suckers to the body. Apparently, I’m not the only one frustrated by “After we got ice cream, we knit three stitches, then backed up and moved the six previous stitches to a holder. By the way, I had strawberry ice cream. It was good. Where was I? Oh yeah, then you want to knit all the stitches except the twelve you moved to the holders. Do you like ice cream, too? What’s your favorite flavor?”

Yeah, still an exaggeration, but still very close to the actual pattern wording.

It’s like manic me decided to write a knitting pattern.

*sigh*

Sunday, August 05, 2007

ALL DONE!

“Child’s Aran Sweater” by Yankee Knitter, Addi Turbos (6 & 8s - I knit tight), Lion Brand Wool-Ease in forest green heather

The Baby Sweater of DOOM! is finally finished. 

Note to self: it doesn’t matter how stinkin’ small the sweater is, aran sweaters take a sh’load of work.

Second note to self: blackberry (bobble) stich makes you break out in hives. Do not knit anything that requires blackberry again!

Third note to self: I bet I could fly through a baby sweater that doesn’t require 2 types of cables and the flippin’ blackberry stitch….

I have apparently been bitten by the sweater bug.  Is this a good thing?

Monday, May 21, 2007

A little Stash Enrichment eXpidition never hurt anyone.

yahn

That’s Claudia’s handpainted in Butter Pecan - which I think will be sox for the MIL.  And a copy of “Adorable Knits for Tots”.  (What?  My friends are having babies and there is the MOST AMAZING pirate sweater in there.  I’ve got that marked for SOMEONE’ s first born.  I know the day will come - I just don’t know when.  *grin*)  Plus I love that star sweater on the cover - I’m thinking about knitting it for Beatle.