the offWhites

Alas, no pictures of the scarf after all - I couldn’t find any pins to block it with until late this evening, so it looks pretty unimpressive.  It does keep me warm, though. I wore it today on the scooter on a few fairly long trips, and it kept me from feeling the chill of the wind really well.  Yay! Functionality!

Wooooo! It’s finished! The scarf, the beautiful scarf, is off the needles! I still need to block it, but I think that’ll wait until morning.  In the meantime, it’s wrapped around my neck, keeping me warm in our cold, unheated, Taiwan apartment. I did buy a few sweaters today - I could put one of them on, but I think I’ll stick with the scarf for now.

I’ll take some pictures tomorrow when it’s blocking and then some more when I deem it officially done.

Just watched the first miniseries episode of Battlestar Galactica. It was good.

We’ve got the complete miniseries as well as seasons one and two, with season three on the way.

I think I’m set for my knitting tv for a while.

Speaking of knitting, I’m through row 85. The main charted section has 101 rows, so 16 more rows there. Then there’s the end chart, which is 12 rows, only two of which involve any lace stitches, so it should go very quickly. I’m guestimating I’ll be finished with the knitting tomorrow. The last 16 rows of the main section should take about two hour-long tv shows, minus commercial breaks, so, about 1.5 hours, plus another hour, let’s say, for the last one. So, only 2.5 hours of knitting to get the sucker done.¹

All that’s left then is blocking the scarf. That should be interesting, as I’ve never blocked anything before. Also? I don’t have any straight pins to block it with. I guess I’ll figure that out soon enough, right?

1. This all assumes I can knit tomorrow. I’m feeling absolutely wretched, as one is likely to when they ignore a wicked sore thoat and talk way too much all day. My throat feels raw, my nose hurts from blowing it too much, and my ears achy and popping constantly. [↩]

Stupid hacking cough.  Keeping me from getting my dang rest.

I called in sick to kindy this morning after I coughed so hard that I was afraid I was going to puke.  I also sort of felt like crap, and Seth was pretty insistent that I stay home and rest.  Of course, that hacking cough that is the source of my troubles also kept me from sleeping the morning away, so after laying in bed for about a half-hour, and went ahead and got up.  Since I felt yucky but not devastatingly so, I hit play on a few episodes on Gossip Girl and went to town on my scarf.  In all, I got over 30 rows done between this morning and tonight.  Woo! I’m now finished with the vertical repeats and into the last charted section.

I love this part of knitting - when the end is in sight and I find a sort of cruise control for the project.  I guess that makes me a project-oriented knitter rather than a process-oriented knitter, but I’m not sure.  I mean, yes, I do like finishing.  But who doesn’t?  I also love the process (well, usually, anyway - just a few seconds of wandering attention can mean undoing rows and rows, forehead furrowing and my silently cursing the yarn, the needles, the pattern, myself…), and I love having something to do with my hands when I watch TV or ride the train.  I’m discovering that I sort of love lace, even if I’m not ready for the really really ornate stuff.  That’s okay, though - I’ve got a few projects in my stash, just waiting for me to pull them out.  I’ve even got the cobweb-weight yarn for them, if it ever stops freaking me out!

My life is too boring to write about today. I went to work, I worked for over 12 hours, got paid for 6.5 of them, blah blah blah. I came home and our friend Alison was here for tech support, so we been chatted up a storm (shop talk, of course, as it so often tends to be), and I’ve done no knitting (boo). But, time with real people is better than time with yarn, as long as the people are good ones (she is, so no worries), so it’s all good.

I’m just about ready to fall asleep now. I may not actually be able to fall asleep, since I’ve got this hacking cough that won’t leave, and all sorts of sinus drip fun, and sheesh, I think this job (or more specifically, the hours) are killing me. I hope our potential schedule changes work out or I get used to it, because as it is now, something’s got to give, and that something so far, as been my health.

I like my health. I really sort of miss it. I hope it comes home soon. I suppose going to sleep earlier than midnight might help that some. That’ll happen one of these days, I’m sure. I’ll keep on trying to make it happen, at any rate.

So, yeah.  It’s Tuesday.  My plan day.  We have kindy in the morning, and then I don’t have a class until 4:30, so I use the time in between to plan my bushiban classes for the rest of the week, and do any grading or other paperwork I can. So, I planned, graded,  and edited a script before class.  Then there was class, of course, and after I stayed there and wrote communication books (on a Tuesday! so freakin’ early!), so that I’ll have time to write “Teacher’s Words of Wisdom” tomorrow.  We’ve been told that we can type them (”you can write them onna tha computer, make them all the same”), but I’m afraid it’ll still take some time.  I’ve got some “free time” that’s not really free between classes tomorrow afternoon, so I’m hoping to crank them out then.  Wish me luck, I guess.

In non-work related news, I finished another 9 rows on my scarf - woo! I’m up to row 40, so only 60-ish rows to go!  That means that if I can do about 10 rows a night for the next six nights, I’ll be finished knitting in less than a week!  Or, more realistically, if I can do about 10 rows a night every few nights here and there for the next few weeks, I’ll be finished knitting it before the end of February! Woo! Go me!

So, the scarf I mentioned yesterday? It’s the Artic Lace Stole from Dona Druchunas’s Artic Lace, excerpted in the Winter 2006 Interweave Knits (sorry, no pictures of mine right now - I’m not sure my camera is, and I’m not up for digging it up ad then uploading the picture and linking it and blah blah blah).  I’m knitting it from some gorgeous brown alpaca fingering weight I bought at the Kansas State Fair when I was there in 2006 judging 4-H robotics. (Huh.  That’s a sentence I’d never have imagined writing five years ago.) I’m only doing three repeats of the pattern, width-wise, and I’m just beginning the fifth repeat of the pattern, length-wise.  If I stick to the pattern, I’ve got less than 100 rows to go (woo!).

I really like the pattern, and while I haven’t memorized it, I’ve got it down enough that I only have to check the chart at the beginning of the row and then I can do it without looking back too much.  For my first charted lace project (first lace project at all, really), I think that’s pretty good.

Anyway, between yesterday’s kitting at the cafe and the knitting I did today while we watched movies and some old tv shows, I finished an entire pattern repeat.  I’m considering doing one more repeat than the pattern calls for, as I want to have plenty of room to wrap it around my neck and/or head in the cold. I don’t know - I guess I should measure it now or something.  Of course, it’ll grow after I block it, but as I’ve never done that before, I have no earthly idea just how much it’ll grow.  Nevertheless, I want to err on the longer side of things.

Eh, maybe nevermind.  I just tried it on, and it’s approaching long enough as it is, so with the length I’ll gain in the next (last) pattern repeat plus the finishing rows, and the unknown length I’ll gain in blocking, it should be plenty long enough.  Woo!  There’s an FO on my knitting horizon!

10:30am - Wake up.

10:32am - Go grab my computer and snuggle back under the covers.

12:00 noon - Decide it’s time to get up and take a shower.

12:30pm - Seth makes some ramen for lunch and we continue internetting.

2:00pm - I fall asleep.

5:00pm - Seth wakes me up, asks if I want to go into Keelung for dinner and a movie. I say sure.

5:02pm - BB calls, suggests the same. We make plans to meet.

6:3opm - We watch National Treasure 2. I laugh at spots surely not intended for humor, loving every cheesy, telegraphed, minute of it.

8:30pm - We head to a coffee shop to hang and chat. I knit on a lace scarf I started sometime in late 2006.

11:00pm - We decide it’s time to call it a night and scooter home.

I think it was a day well spent.

We made macaroni and cheese tonight, and my belly hurts a little since I stuffed it so thoroughly.  Mmm…cheese.

So, the new NST begins working officially on Thursday, and I’m super excited, as I get to drop four hours from my official work load.  I’ll lose 2 1-hour shifts (on Tuesday and Friday evenings), and 1 2-hour shift (on Wednesday afternoon). In both cases, the class I’m getting rid of is at the end of my workday, so theory I’ll have more time in the evening to clean/cook/knit/read/fart around on the internet (which one do you think is the most likely?).  Woo!  I’m pretty excited, actually.

One of the things I really want to do is get back into knitting a little more - I’ve got a wedding present to finish and send home, and I’d like to knit myself a cardigan, or maybe finish the Artfibers Tussah silk sweater that’s been on hold for more than a year.  Or make some new socks - I’m really loving my handknit socks lately more and more, but I’ve only got four pairs. Ooh, or maybe a scarf! I could use an everyday all-the-time-scarf that I could wear when I’m a little chilly instead of putting on a jacket (at least until I finish that cardigan…), and then I’d look so effortlessly cool, right?  I mean, only effortlessly cool people can really pull off the casual, all-the-time-scarf.  Although, with my luck, I’d probably be one of the people who look less casually, effortless cool and more like they’re trying really, really hard.

Oooh, I got my ATM card today!  So now I can get money at the 7-11 or at a random street corner.  Yay for easy access!! And for ATMs that have English along side the Chinese on their menus!

I’ve lost my knitting mojo.  I’ve got yarn, I’ve got needles, I’ve got patterns, and I’ve even occasionally got time.  I’ve even got patterns that I really want to knit.  I’ve just got no inclination at at all.  I want to want to knit, but I can’t force myself.

Truth be told, I think I’m just too tired.  At the end of the day, all I really want to do is check my email, check my blogs, and write this one before I head to bed. We hardly even watch the little bit of TV we have.  Life is like this: wake up around 7:00 (that’s an average, as it swings between 5:30 and oh-my-god-it’s-already 8:00) , get to work around 8:30, work until 8 or 9:30, come home, zone out in front of the internets for anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, the finally go to sleep between midnight and 1:30am. And then do it again the next day.

Now, I realize this seems completely normal to some people.  To me, it doesn’t.

(Sigh…) I miss my knitting.  I hope I find my mojo soon.