Various Engagements

Oh, did I say I was going to come back and blog two consecutive days? Let's see the needles of the knitters who believed that malarky.

Good, I thought so. Anyway, I have a good excuse:

Through a long and baffling series of events, I became officially engaged to this man, seen here about to ralph on the teacups at Dizzyland.

Anyone who has been reading my KR posts (and if you have, you should spend more time knitting) you'll know that I kinda knew this was coming. We've been planning this debacle since before Boy's father went into the hospital, but I hesitated to blog about it until I had been officially "collared" (Boy said it, not me).

Well, it's official. Wonder if I can get a yarn shower?

In non-hitchin' wedding news, the yarn to finish up the jelly came in!

I could not for the life of me find the labels for the original skeins in order to compare dye lots, but so far I don't see any noticible difference. Here's hoping for the best!

Propaganda?

Check out this email I just got from the Sock Knitters Web Ring:

The RingMaster of "Sock Knitting Ring" has deleted your site from the Ring.

Your site includes the following information:
Site Title: the Knitting Wounded
Site URL: http://knittingwounded.blogspot.com/
WebRing ID: ********

The site was deleted due to the reasons cited below by the RingMaster.Navigation code not installed or on wrong page. No action. Please do reapply, we love your site!

Now, do you think they really love my site, or is that something they send to everyone with the wrong nav code?

Better posting tomorrow, including a thought on why even Stinker, the poultry queen, is now sick of turkey...

Thanks

Happy Turkey Day all! ( I keep referring to it as "Rape of the New World" day, but that's Columbus Day, my bad).

Things I am thankful for:

I was finished cooking at 4:30 am this morning.

I'm not sure how this happened, but it has become the tradition at work for me to cook for the office on Thanksgiving. The turkey, potatoes, and dressing were started last night, cooked early this morning, and were picked up by the morning manager and delivered to the hungry hoards at work. If there will be any food left when I arrive for my shift this afternoon remains to be seen. Don't worry though, Boy's family will be sending him home with a plate for me.

Stinker is quite upset; the house smells of delicious food that she didn't even get a good look at. When I stumbled into the kitchen at 3am to baste I found her in the kitchen staring at the oven.

That I can order from Knitpicks at 2am on a Sunday:


The Jellyfish Shawl is on hiatus for the moment. Can you guess why?

Yep. Ran out of yarn.

I would like to go on the record and say that I have lived my knitting life in constant worry about running out of yarn My socks all have shorter cuffs than the pattern specifies because I'm afraid I'll get to that second toe and "Whoops!", all out of yarn. I have balls and balls of leftovers from my larger projects because I was terrified ending up a sleeve too short. Well, it finally happened, and you know what? No big deal. So what if the dye lot on the new ball is off? It's not a lapse in knitterly judgement! It's a design element! Really!

Finished Objects:

Running out of jellyfish yarn was probably a blessing; I was starting to get knitter's burnout from not finishing anything in so long. I would like to present the first Trekking F&F sock, finished at the hospital Tuesday. Its sister is already on the needles, but is not much to look at yet.

The Wonderful Knitters (psst, that's you!)

I am really thankful for everyone's support through this rough patch as Boy's father recovers. Things took a turn for the worse after he came out of surgery, but we're hoping that the worst is behind us. I also want to thank:

Aija at SockP*rn. The Koigu is absolutely wonderful and currently trying to seduce me from my other projects.

Wendy at Wendy Knits! for saving my butt with a great pie recipe when the grocery stores were all out of traditional pie crusts. She has a registry at Heifer International if you want to give back to the world and be in the running for knitting prizes. Check with your work to see if they have a donation-matching program to make your gift go further.

and Apologies to Stephanie at Knit it in Black, Please I finally get your prize from the Knitting Poll contest out and forget to tell you who it was from. Glad you like the cotton & bamboo goodies!

My Leetle Family

Aren't they cute!

Give your loved ones a big hug and stuff yourself silly today. Try the hug first, no one wants Uncle Bob to rupture something.

Recovery

Hello All!

Thank you so much for all of your supportive comments and emails! I am happy to report that Boy's father came out of Thursday's surgery just fine and is currently off the ventilator and giving the poor nurses hell. We'll have to see how he reacts to the chemo before we know how well the surgery worked, but I'm glad this first bit is over.

Okay, now for the knitting content!

I'm not going to bore you with further pictures of the jellyfish. The shawl is bigger, but a bigger jellyfish is still a jellyfish. And I think I messed up on the YO2 part, so it's in time out until I get that figured out. In the meantime, look! Stinker in a basket!


Have I ever mentioned that Boy works straight across from the Los Angeles Public Library? And that this library has a food court and gift shop? Well, Boy and I headed to LA yesterday for, well, nevermind what for. We ended up walking around the library, seeing the Puro Muerto exhibit, and checking out the gift shop. Look what I found:
How could I possibly resist? I couldn't find it on the library website, but Sarah Utter has this and the "Reading is Sexy" merchandise of the buyolympia.com website. If you're going to be in downtown LA, I highly recommend seeing the library exhibits and heading over Pershing Square for ice skating. No really, ice skating!

And, my long-anticipated spinning is here:

It's 3-ply, variable weight blue wool, spun with a top drop spindle by myself. I had fun with this first batch, mostly because I didn't have any preconceived notion of what I was trying to get. I wasn't aiming for a particular weight, so if it went thicker, cool. Thinner, okay. I think I could use some training before I start my next roving, or at least see someone do it that knows how. I may look into a new spindle as well; it's a beautifully decorate spindle, but there is no notch, which is a pain in the behind and seriously affected my plying.

I think it's time to untangle my mistake with the jellyfish. Cheers!

Meltdown

Warning: Sad, non-knitting content below.

I apologize for not posting very often lately. I have been cherrily knitting and sitting in hospital rooms for most of my free time. When I tell folks that I spent most of my formative years waiting in hospitals, I'm only half-kidding. I have spent an above-average percentage of my teens and twenties waiting in hospitals and caring for dying family members, watching my mother's side of my family dwindle to myself and my brother.

I was 15 when my mother went into the hospital for her first surgery. I sat with her and put on a brave face while they got her ready and started rolling her away. As soon as she turned the corner I burst into tears. I spent the rest of the day roming the hospital, sobbing hysterically most of the time. I thankfully had a friend with me that day; he attempted to cheer me up the entire day, then kept me from beating the snot out of my mother's surgeon when he came out and told me that the "little tumor" they had gone in to remove had turned out to be five meatloaf-sized growths.

I then spent the next six years helping and fighting my mother, eventually dropping out of college (I wasn't doing that well anyway) and moving out to the worst place on Earth to take care of her. Watching her refuse chemo, take chemo, lose her hair and get so sick that the chemo nearly killed her. Working/borrowing/pawning everything to pay the rent to keep us off the street. Learning to cook just in time for her to eat nothing but strawberry parfait. Arguing with adult services when they tried to take her away because she took the wrong medication, only to have her wake up the next day with no recollection of the police, emergency room, or the hospice counsellors. Watching her fade away by inches until one day she couldn't walk anymore. Telling my little brother that it wasn't his fault that she was dying a week before she was gone.

Last night Boy came home and asked me what was wrong, and I completely lost it. I have told him more than once that the reason that we didn't get together in high school was so I could be here for him now. I have been trying to be strong for Boy and Boy's father and their family, but last night I could not do it. I screamed and cried and railed against the Universe for making me go through this again in the most selfish hystronics I may have ever endulged in. Boy, while initially confused, understood my meltdown. Once I was done crying he told me how much he appreciated all my support and reminded me that I was not alone this time; we're in this together.

Today I feel much better and quite able to head to the hospital and make small-talk while knitting my grandmother's shawl for as long as it takes.

Tomorrow morning Boy's father will be going into surgery for the same disease that took my mother. If you could, please send some good healing thoughts his way. In return I will post pictures of my first plying sometime this weekend, among other, less depressing, knitting content.

Heads Up!

First of all, thanks to everyone who has been commenting! I rarely get an email to tell me if someone has commented, so if you asked me a question, please ask it again at lastinsiteatverizondotnet.

I apologize for not posting for so long, but a whole lot of stuff has been going on in the knitting wounded tent. To make up for my negligence, I am hereby forgoing dishwashing tonight to give you all this highlight reel:

Boy's father is back in the hospital and not at all well. Like I'm-not-sure-I-should-tell-Boy-what-"Stage Four"-means not well. Having lost my mother to the same sort of ailment, it's been up to me to prepare Boy with the worst case scenario. Good news is that the old man is not that old, has a team of very good doctors, nurses, and aides, and that he is an onery S*B that will not take this lying down. I give us at least even odds of beating this thing.

This has somehow become this:

An amorphous jelly-fish sort of thing? Hopefully it will become the Janet shawl from Knitpicks once I've blocked it, but I have serious doubts. It turns out that shawl knitting can be excellent hospital knitting. There are parts where you have to actually pay attention to what you're doing, a bit of mindless knitting, and the circular construction makes it feasible to yank on your needles and drop what you're doing if need be. I am currently on row 50 of 98, which I guess means I'm about a quarter to a third done with it. Damn these expanding rows...

I've also been working on a feather-and-fan sock. Not suprisingly, it seems like the rest of Blogtopia has already gotten the same idea. At least I'm riding the wave this time; I usually come in about six months or a year behind...


I think the yarn and the pattern go swimmingly together. Normally I pick a pattern and yarn that are faboo by themselves but don't work together. Maybe I've started on the path to better yarn-pattern connections? I mean, look at how happy this sock is!


Lookout freshman, I'm going back to school. I met with a counselor today and we figured out a class I could take to finish up my associates degree and only actually show up to campus six times the whole semester. Hot damn, I'm finally gonna get that sheepskin!

I've been going a bit of spinning, but, honestly, it looks a whole lot like the first two singles. I'll take some more pictures once I start plying.

I finally ordered the yarn for Jolie. After much consideration, I decided to go with an unknown yarn: Totem in Hematite Red. It's not on the website anymore, but I'll give you the skinny once the order comes in. Why did I go with this yarn? I liked the color, I liked the name of the color, and I liked that I was getting a wool blend. I live in Southern California; it was 86 degrees yesterday for crying out loud. The fact that I got more than enough for my whole sweater for less than $25 also made me a little more apt to try something new. Jolie will probably be my next big project if I ever get to the end of the jellyfish.

I also want to tell you all about the great not-so-LYS I went to in Temecula. Someone remind me to post a critique?

If the jellyfish turns out well, I'll need to start another shawl right after the holidays. I'm thinking about another round shawl, but I'm open to suggestions. Anyone know of a really nifty, super impressive shawl pattern I could reasonably finish within, let's say, four months? Big emphasis on reasonably here...

Quit Googling Yourself; Other People Need To Use The Computer, Too!

Top 10 search results on Google for "Becka needs":

1. Becka needs to comment on my new post.
2. Becka needs to have this damn baby so she can wear her tight little panties like the slore she is.
3. Becka needs to hook me up with a sweet UI too.
4. Becka needs help with TIM BURTON.
5. Becka needs to report and bill for her time on these grants to get reimbursed.
6. I think all Becka needs to do for us is pay our bills and go shopping for us.
7. Becka needs to apologize.
8. Becka needs to come to dba and dance with curly Murly!
9. Becka needs more intelligence.
10. Becka needs to go home.

I couldn't agree more.